Babylon 5 (Season 1 Ep 11) - "Survivors"
Lieutenant commander, why are all comm channels to Earth offline?
Ivanova:Maintenance check. We wouldn't want the president to be out of touch when he gets here.
Lianna:I demand you open a channel to Earth at once.
Ivanova:I'm a lieutenant commander in Earth Force major. I do not take demands. If you have a request, I'll consider it.
Lianna:Very well then. I request that you open a channel to Earthdome.
Ivanova:Request denied. Have a nice day.
Rachel:Hi. I'm Rachel.
Matt:And I'm Matt. Welcome to We are all Kas.
Rachel:A Babylon five rewatch. Alright. Are you ready for this one? This was kind of a I'm not gonna lie. It's a bit of a relief.
Rachel:We've had some really heavy hitting episodes, and then this one was like, what if what if we were an action spy drama for forty eight minutes? Oh.
Matt:Do you
Rachel:think we could do that? You think we could handle that?
Matt:No? Take a little break from the trauma.
Rachel:From the, like, the the, like, the suicidal drama. The watchers.
Matt:Yes. We'll just And get a little backstory on Garibaldi.
Rachel:Yeah. Let's talk. This was a Garibaldi backstory episode. That is the only thing that matters about this episode is we finally get a glimpse. Well, we have had those little pokes about the fact that he does not have a, Joan Cleaver backstory, that he has gone through some shit, like, from the episode when we talked to the lady from Interstellar Network News, and she was like, wow.
Matt:Who's Joan Cleaver?
Rachel:Oh, June Cleaver. My my my bad. That's the cold getting at me. June Evelyn Bronson Cleaver was the principal character in the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver.
Matt:Thank you for clarifying for the listeners.
Rachel:So the archetypal the archetypal suburban wife from the nineteen fifties. The That's
Matt:the vibe I was getting, but I didn't recognize that.
Rachel:No thoughts. Just cooking. That that's the that's the character. The I have I have nothing. I have no choice.
Rachel:It's just backstory. I don't I literally matter so little. I have no backstory. No.
Matt:Garibaldi is not one of those characters.
Rachel:That is not Garibaldi. Garibaldi has, he's got baggage. He's he's dragging around a suitcase full of baggage. And He's got
Matt:junk in the trunk.
Rachel:And we finally yes. He's got junk in the trunk, and we finally get to unpack at least a small part of that. And as I was saying, we we've gotten a reference to this before when we talked to that lady from Interstellar Network News, and she said, well, isn't this kind of your last chance? Haven't you washed out of, like, a bunch of your employment contracts before this? And Garibaldi's like, we're not gonna talk about that.
Rachel:We're not gonna say anything more about that. So what we're going to be talking about is Babylon five season one episode 11, survivors. Survivors.
Matt:Survivor.
Rachel:Survivors. And it is directed by Jim Johnston, written by Mark Scott Zicree. So, again, this is not JFS's fault. I'm gonna be now that I'm actually paying attention to who's written these episodes, I'm wondering if my favorite episodes are all written by JMS. We're gonna test that theory, I think, as we go on.
Rachel:The original air date for this is 05/04/1994. And I think this is a good point to ask ourselves. Was this a good episode? Or if you were watching this in Babylon five, when it was originally airing And if you were sitting down after dinner, 05/04/1994, you've just gotten through two pretty heavy episodes, and then you get this episode. How do you feel as a person, as a as a viewer?
Rachel:I think I'd feel a little I'm sorry. What what just happened?
Matt:You changed the tone real fast.
Rachel:You that was fucking tonal whiplash. We went from, is it right to save a child despite their religious objections so they have the opportunity to grow up and question their religion, or do you allow them to die knowing that there may be no reason they have to die? To, oh, no. Girl Baldy. He alcoholic.
Rachel:He on the run. Oh, no. It's a big total shift. Yeah. Right?
Rachel:And I've seen some criticism of this episode, and I think maybe we'll probably talk about it when we get there, which is that
Matt:this
Rachel:is supposed to be gear showing us Garibaldi's problems, but that it doesn't actually solve any of his problems, that he's not actually
Matt:The problem was
Rachel:Healing.
Matt:What's her name?
Rachel:Liana.
Matt:Misunderstanding.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Like, not knowing the truth about, like, Garibaldi's motivations.
Rachel:Well, it's and also incident. That the minute he has an excuse, he goes straight back to drinking. Yeah. So has he actually processed any of his issues? And my question is, did he have to?
Rachel:Is that what this episode should be showing us? It feels a little unrealistic that every single character is going to be healed at the end of their one off episode about their alcoholic backstory. So I think that's a really unfair criticism.
Matt:I have to be fair, he turned down, like, four drinks.
Rachel:Yeah. He fought the good fight. He got pushed against the wall. And
Matt:And then slammed and then tripped and then bludgeoned.
Rachel:Yeah. He got physically beaten up, mentally beaten up, emotionally beaten up. And then he was like, I'm not strong enough
Matt:to handle this. Someone gave him a free bottle of booze.
Rachel:Yeah. Well, he paid 1 coin. 1 Centauri took it for it. Yeah. But I don't know.
Rachel:I I I just stumbled across some maybe contemporary criticism, maybe, like, reviews from later. It was in the Wikipedia article. And I was like, I don't know that that's really a criticism that he doesn't actually process his trauma because I'm not really sure that that was the purpose of this episode. Yeah. It was literally just he
Matt:needs to have have healed from that.
Rachel:It was just rolling down the window on the opaque box that is some that is Garibaldi's backstory.
Matt:Right. This was giving us a glimpse, and he did heal the relationship with La Liana a little bit.
Rachel:We'll we'll get to that. But Elaine Thomas is the one who plays Liana Kemmer. Mhmm. She goes on to do, like, fuck all. She pretty much disappeared after this.
Rachel:She's a producer, so she's done some production things, but she's not a that girl where she went on and did, like, anything else. And then Tom Donaldson, same. He's the guy who plays Cutter, and both of them have, like, seven IMDB credits. And his doesn't even say he's known for Babylon five. It says he's known for, like, something else, which is fair because he's in this episode all of, I think, maybe fifteen minutes.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:Oh, another thing I wanna cover now that we've really hooked you with our witty banter, we're gonna be taking the entire month of March off. So if you're wondering when your next, come in not come in here with Kilo.
Matt:We are all
Rachel:We are all cash fix is coming in, it will not be until April because we are moving
Matt:weeks into April?
Rachel:Because we're moving, like, a thousand miles away from where we currently live. So something tells me I'm not also going to be able to produce three hour long podcast episodes and move a family of four a thousand miles across the country. So we are going to be taking a break, and we're
Matt:Come on. Get your priorities straight.
Rachel:Maybe if I had someone who helped me. I'm kidding.
Matt:Move the heavy things.
Rachel:We covered that last time. You provide, financial assistance.
Matt:I'm the financial backer.
Rachel:In the pluckiest sides. You are my you are my riff.
Matt:I'm your foil?
Rachel:My riff biffle? My my
Matt:Riffle biffle. My riff biffle. I like that.
Rachel:Yes. And the but it's fine. So just so you're aware, heads up. April will have no new episodes. Oh, sorry.
Rachel:March and possibly part of April. But we will be back. We are not leaving. Well, we're not we're leaving our current home. We're not
Matt:but we're not leaving. You are
Rachel:not leaving. No. So this episode was apparently originally titled a knife in the shadows.
Matt:I think that would have given off a much more dramatic implication. And then you watch this and you think, okay. Knife in the shadows doesn't quite match the
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Story.
Rachel:I mean, it does a little bit better than survivors maybe, but what it does do is set the tone better because I don't know who where they thought or when they thought they were, but Garibaldi is in a 19 spy drama, and everyone else is in a different episode. And I feel like knife in the shadows would have fit the overall The noir detective. Noir detective vibe. He needed a fedora and a pack of cigarettes this entire episode. Yeah.
Rachel:He needed to borrow Sinclair's incognito coat, his peacoat slash cape thing. It would have been perfect. And the box of the glass nose mustache combo glasses that that Sinclair has in his in his closet.
Matt:That would fit Garibaldi's character extremely well. Thank you.
Rachel:They renamed it, though, for that speech at the very end that Garibaldi gives where he's like, we just have to survive and forget how much it hurts to be human. So they renamed it for that.
Matt:Okay.
Rachel:Yeah. And it's interesting that Garibaldi and doctor Franklin make the same exit point Mhmm. In two episodes back to back. The That being human is painful. Yeah.
Rachel:The no being human just means you have so many different ways to hurt. And then Garibaldi's like, well, maybe, eventually, we'll forget how much it hurts to be human. Okay. It's fine. It's just an interesting you probably wouldn't have noticed at the time, or you couldn't go back and watch it anyway.
Matt:If you didn't care, you wouldn't hurt.
Rachel:Yeah. I love how Garibaldi's like, we can get past this, and doctor Franklin's like, this is an intrinsic part of the human condition. It's a very, illustrative illustrative thing of their different characters.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:You'd think Garibaldi would be the nihilist. It's fine. Doctor Franklin's totally fine by the it's like the next day. Doctor Franklin
Matt:even see doctor Franklin in fact.
Rachel:We do. We see him a couple times, but he's just, like in this episode? Making cracks and yeah, he's fine. Yeah. Whatever.
Rachel:Oh, well.
Matt:He's not traumatized.
Rachel:What is
Matt:He's good at hiding the trauma.
Rachel:What a shitty Tuesday that was. Am I right?
Matt:Just another week.
Rachel:Day. Thank god.
Matt:Just another day. Weekend. On five.
Rachel:Wow. This job is challenging. I love it. So
Matt:I'm thinking I'm imagining doctor Franklin. Unlike every other job that he's had, every shift that he's gotten transport on, every office that he's worked as a doctor in, he's violated fundamental ethical principles. And so this is just normal operating procedure for him.
Rachel:Damn it. They caught me. Normally, you can schmooze his way into doing it, and this time, he's like, dang it.
Matt:No worries. I get away with it.
Rachel:Yeah. It really felt like a temper tantrum. Like, nobody's letting me do what I wanna do, but it's fine because he's fine now.
Matt:I've done this, like, twenty times before, and it always works out.
Rachel:I know. I've tried nothing before, and it always works. So we finally meet. We don't meet at all, actually, but we see Luis Santiago, the president. We don't see him.
Rachel:We see
Matt:his ship. The ship. Yeah.
Rachel:We hear him.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:We hear him later. We hear him giving a speech. But his ship color is supposed to be like Air Force one's colors.
Matt:Okay.
Rachel:And this is actually a modified version of the only transport ship that we've seen so far, the Asimov.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:In the same way that Air Force one is supposed to be a modified version of an airplane.
Matt:Okay.
Rachel:That was the five they were going for. And this ship was designed by Ron Thornton. I stumbled across some trivia. So Okay. Welcome.
Rachel:Join me. And, apparently, he really liked this spaceship shape, and so they started, jokingly calling it the Thornton gun because he likes I wanna be the guy that designs spaceships and designs so many of them. You get known for the way you design the spaceship. Mhmm. That's funny.
Rachel:Oh, and I found this out. Starfuries were designed by a guy named Steve Berg, and they were inspired by the gun star fighters from the last star fighter. And I think we we the last time we watched the last star fighter, we're like, wow. Those look like star furies.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:We were correct. We were correct. So we open on a broadcast a this is actually, like, the one reporter that we're gonna see through the this lady got paid in sandwiches, and she still showed up, like, every fifteenth episode to Mhmm. Give us a a plot hook via newscast.
Matt:I wonder if she's an actual news reporter.
Rachel:I don't know. She this is she's credited in, like, all the seasons, so she must just keep coming back to be Yeah. The anchor. She's lasted longer than half the anchors on MS but NBC at this point, Probably because she's white. So, anyway, then president she's like, president Luis Santiago is on his way to be the eye roll that I got from you was I'm leaving it in just so when I listen to this episode, I'll see that look of
Matt:Uh-huh.
Rachel:Shock on your face. Shock? Uh-huh. You said that out loud. Which she says, president Luis Santiago's on his way to Babylon 5 to present a new wing of fighters.
Newcaster:Rumors are still running rampant in Earth Dome as president Luis Santiago continues his journey to Babylon 5. While the president is scheduled to present a new fighter wing to the station, many believe his real reason for the visit is to build support for his new alien immigration and trade agreements, which have met with strong opposition in the senate.
Rachel:So they're getting a whole new compliment of Starfury's probably because they've had somebody even blow up at this point. They're like, should we go ahead and give him another another
Matt:shipment? They're using them.
Rachel:Well, let's make a thing about it. Let's travel out there and, like, formally present them, and we just won't comment on the fact that it's because they're they're running out. He's also kind of going to promote his new alien and immigration trade agreement because he's been meeting with a lot of opposition in the senate. So we know that Earth itself wants to be isolationist. Luis Santiago is trying to push them to maintain relations with other alien governments, and it's not going over well.
Matt:Yeah. It's probably not gonna work out very well for him.
Rachel:No. I don't. Shh. Anyway, I think Garibaldi and Ivanovah are walking. They're walking from somewhere, and they end up on a transport tube.
Rachel:It doesn't matter. It's kind of a cute interaction. It's our usual if we just stood in a room and have this conversation, it would be boring. Why don't we have them going somewhere while they're talking? And I love how nihilist they are together.
Rachel:Yvonneva looks so unbuttoned this whole episode because she doesn't have her most severe hairstyle.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:I think to contrast Liana's severe hairstyle. Yeah. Because Liana
Matt:Otherwise, they'd have the same look.
Rachel:Yeah. Because Liana went to the same hairstylist that Ivanova went to before her date with Malcolm because she has, like, a braid and a twist and a ponytail and another braid. And it's the what? It took her, like, four hours in the morning to do all this shit to her hair instead of just pulling it back into a braid. But it's fine.
Matt:It's fine. Ivanova goes, well,
Rachel:have they given us the itinerary yet? Do we do we even know what's happening? Garibaldi's like, no. They want it to be a mystery as long as possible. So that way you can't plan anything Yeah.
Rachel:If you don't know where the president's gonna be, I guess. Security. Yeah. Garibaldi's like, oh, yeah. That security.
Rachel:That way they can blame us if anything goes wrong. Security.
Rachel:That way, they can blame us if anything goes wrong. And Adam is like, yep. There that was the entire theme of the whole episode Mhmm. Right there. Well, that way, it's my fault if anything goes wrong.
Rachel:You're correct. You're correct, Garibaldi. Yes. And they end up getting in this transport shuttle, which I love that the only person who convincingly acts like it's low gravity is the first person who walks into the shuttle. They're like they do, like, a slow motion reach, and everyone else is like, alright.
Rachel:Well, they've established that it's low gravity, so we can just walk directly onto the shuttle. It's totally fine. And this kinda reminded me of, so I watch a lot of K dramas specifically because I love Gong You. And so there is a the first k drama sci fi that they put out a couple of years ago and it was on Netflix. And there's a scene where they're supposed to be walking across the moon and they're all supposed to be walking like they're in moon gravity.
Rachel:And they are trying so hard, and it looked exactly like that first guy that's like slow motion as he gets on the show. Anyway, it's a good series. Got a lot of flack. I don't know why. I thought it was really good.
Rachel:People are like, well, it's really slow. I'm like, are you fucking watched K dramas? That's the definition of a K drama. If we have covered any plot by episode 14, I'm disappointed. Okay?
Rachel:It's all gotta happen in the last two episodes. This is known. And Garibaldi's continuing their conversation. He's like, if you ask me, this whole dang luau is a waste of our time. I don't know if a lot of has to repeat that back to him.
Rachel:She's like, well, we're getting a whole new fighter wing out of this luau.
Matt:I I wonder if they objected to the wording in the script and, like, they didn't like the word luau.
Rachel:I don't know. I don't know. Because they're not really allowed to ad lib. They there were strict rules about ad libbing. Right.
Rachel:But they could ad
Matt:libbing. Chafing at ad libbing.
Rachel:I wonder if you could rephrase. If you could be, like if he was supposed to say something like, we're this whole dang event or whatever. And he said luau. And so she had to substitute her word of luau.
Matt:And maybe that's why.
Rachel:She hesitates, and she's like, luau. And then Garibaldi is like, yeah. Fighters, we shoulda had two years ago, which means we now have to renovate Cobra Base that have just been sitting empty this whole time. Okay. But what do you get?
Rachel:Like, space barnacles? What what happened to the Cobra Bays over the last two years?
Matt:Spit. They got filled with boxes. Spit.
Rachel:That's all they mean. Oh, shit. We've been storing shit in there. Why are we storing shit everywhere?
Matt:Whose stuff is this?
Rachel:It's all Mark Sinclair. It's just it's just disguises for when he travels around the station disguised like a peasant so he can see what the real real, climate of the Babylon 5 Station is. You're right. It's boxes. In my in my notes, I'm like, space barnacles?
Rachel:What happened? How did they get how did they need massive renovations because they just sat empty? Unless they've changed the way things work in the last two years, and they need to be updated.
Matt:Probably.
Rachel:In which case, they would have had to be updated anyway.
Matt:But anytime you have, like, hydraulics or something sitting for a while, you
Rachel:I don't think they have hydraulics in space anyway.
Matt:How would they move things?
Rachel:I don't know. But why would you have a fluid in space?
Matt:Hydraulics, it's sealed.
Rachel:Yeah. But it could still freeze.
Matt:It's not water.
Rachel:Why is it called hydro? Answer me this.
Matt:Because it's a liquid.
Rachel:It's probably pressurized air. That's probably how they move
Matt:things around. Pressurized air in the space.
Rachel:Well, it's all sealed. Anyway, Ivana was like, yeah. With untrained crews and a quarter of the time they need and all at our expense, are you fucking shocked? Did you think it was gonna go any other way? And Garibaldi goes, nothing that the government does surprises me.
Rachel:And Ivana was like, oh, it's a very Russian attitude. I commend you.
Ivanova:What is something about this surprise you, mister Garibaldi?
Rachel:Nothing the government does surprises me.
Matt:It's a very Russian attitude.
Rachel:I commend you. Cobra Basil. She looks mildly turned on. She's She's like, oh, it's the hottest thing you've ever said, Garibaldi. You don't trust the government?
Rachel:Oh my god. Me neither.
Matt:Now you have my attention.
Rachel:You had my curiosity. Now you have my attention. And they end up getting off the Cobra Bay getting off at the Cobra Bay Zone. So this shuttle, this civilian shuttle that anyone
Matt:we know this is a civilian shuttle?
Rachel:Because there's civilians on it.
Matt:How do we know there's civilians?
Rachel:Because there's a bunch of different races, and the only
Matt:that's right.
Rachel:Only the military on Babylon 5 are only civilians. Okay.
Matt:Or ambassadors.
Rachel:They're not ambassadors. There's, like you can tell because there's one Centauri guy, and any non important Centauri guy is literally an extra with his hair gelled up in the back. In expertly gelled up like he did it him. They were like, I don't know. Spike it.
Rachel:Think think flock of seagulls. Just get that shit high. Okay? And he's like, fine. Fucking fine.
Matt:Get some soap. Go to the bathroom.
Rachel:And he's in the background for five minutes. Nobody cared. They didn't fix it. So they are on a public access, public transport tube that takes you to the Cobra Base
Matt:It may take
Rachel:you to
Rachel:where all the fighters are stored.
Matt:It may take you to a room with a door that goes to the Cobra Bays, but you have to have access to get through that door.
Rachel:No dedicated transport that takes you to the Cobra Bays? What if there's an emergency? Is that how all the the people that fly the Star Furies get to their Star Furies?
Matt:No. That that's where their bunks are.
Rachel:They live down there?
Matt:They live down there.
Rachel:Well, what if they're, like, off getting somebody in the circle now?
Matt:Sinclair's room is right next to it. In fact, the first room off of the Cobra Bay is Sinclair, and then all the rest of the Star Fury pilots are
Rachel:The only
Matt:farther away. So that way, Sinclair can always get in first.
Rachel:I just feel like this is a design flaw because it means you have no record of who accessed the COBRA Bays. Because anybody, even if it's sealed
Matt:bold assumption.
Rachel:Even if it's sealed. Right? Like, even if you just get off and
Matt:you cameras there even if they have no other cameras anywhere.
Rachel:But they don't, though. I mean, look at later, Garibaldi is going to have to get into the Ambassadorial Wing.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:And Lando will say, like, well, you gotta get onto the Ambassadorial Area, and that's hard. And he's like, no. No problem. And he gets onto the Ambassadorial Wing all by himself. He doesn't go see Nagrath.
Rachel:He doesn't do anything. He has no access to
Matt:see Nagrath.
Rachel:Not till afterwards. He goes to see Nagrath after he goes to see Jakar, which means Garibaldi just straight up walks into the Ambassadorial Wing by himself in some stolen clothing and nothing else. There is literally nothing that says that someone can't get off on the Cobra Bay, open the door, and walk right through.
Matt:Common sense says that.
Rachel:Does common sense say that? Because at this point, I would literally believe it's just
Matt:not right. Doesn't say that. Observation of behavior does not say that, but common sense says you'd have some security on the cobra bits.
Rachel:You would hope. You would hope. Maybe there's security, but, like, they prop the door open with a boot because it gets kind of
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:Stuffy down there with all the plasma stuff going on. My my point here is, wow. That's how you get to the Cobra Bays is from the shuttle? It's fine. It's fine.
Rachel:So they end up approaching the door to the Cobra Bays to go inspect it. Wait, actually, before we move on, I'm gonna refer back to our earlier conversation about the door. I don't think there's a door because they don't even check to see if someone has accessed the Cobra Bays. After the explosion and they named Garibaldi, they don't even go back to look to see if Garibaldi went down there.
Matt:Garibaldi has control over the logs.
Rachel:He's the only one with oversight over the logs, and there's no way to check and see if they've been edited?
Matt:No. He couldn't tell that Ivanova was messing with the communications logs. I
Rachel:mean, he did eventually.
Matt:He couldn't look at the logs and tell that that records had been deleted.
Rachel:He could tell that what console had accessed it.
Matt:Yeah. But he couldn't tell records had been deleted.
Rachel:I don't know. I'm just saying. Maybe there's a reason, Garibaldi. No. That's rude.
Rachel:That's rude. Maybe they I don't know. I'm trying to figure out how to excuse the fact that it just doesn't make
Matt:it happens off screen.
Rachel:Maybe it yeah. You know what? They we're not privy to every single thing that happens. You know what? Liana doesn't do it.
Rachel:I know that for sure because Liana doesn't actually do her job.
Matt:She delegates, but then she trusts the wrong people.
Rachel:Well, she delegates to one guy. It's fine. It's fine. They get off at the Cobre Bay. They're heading there.
Rachel:They're having their little chat, and then kapoosh. The Cobre Bay explodes. Yeah. Sinclair is in the Observation Dome, the, like, CNC area, and he everything moves because, oh, no. Babylon 5 has exploded.
Rachel:And then a worker goes flying by the observation window. Whoopsie doodle. That's probably not good. He goes, oh my god. Luckily, there was only one guy working.
Rachel:And when so when she said inexperienced crews working with a quarter of the time at our expense, what she meant was Nolan, the inexperienced guy, the inexperienced cobra bay technician guy that they had working on there. It's fine. It doesn't matter. This is a straightforward action film. That's pretty much what this is.
Rachel:It's just a Garibaldi backstory episode. So we're gonna have a lot of fun tearing this one apart. We go to the intro after that one, and then we come back to doctor Franklin working on the worker who flew out into space. So they went out. They used the tiny little space tongs to be like beep boop and grab him.
Matt:Or did somebody go out with the star fury with the
Rachel:Yeah. That's what I mean. The little the little space tongs. The the grappling hook. The I've got him, and they had to, like, match his spin.
Matt:No. I just yanked him.
Rachel:Yoink And brought him back. Maybe they used the net this time. Yeah. Luckily, he was blown free before the pressure bay doors dropped, and that's how he survived, if you call this surviving. I guess so he didn't slam against the door.
Rachel:He just flew free.
Matt:I guess.
Rachel:And Stephen Franklin goes, if you call this surviving, I don't really think you need to be making any cracks right now. I really just don't feel like this is the moment where we need to see your your personal brand of humor on full display, doctor Franklin.
Matt:We don't really trust your judgment right now.
Rachel:I know. I I think you need to maybe just do your job and shut up. He's, like, poking him with a needle too. And I wanna ask, is that necessary, or is he doing that to me?
Matt:It's research. He's a research doctor.
Rachel:He's like, wow.
Matt:They brought him a research subject.
Rachel:And they're like, wow. Look at this shit. Oh, that seems like it hurts. Let me try this one. Oh, he jerked at that one too.
Matt:Still hurts. Okay. Making a note.
Rachel:Write that down.
Matt:It's science if you record it.
Rachel:And Sinclair's like, did he say anything? And doctor Franklin's like, ouch. No. I don't know. And in his present condition, anything I would do to wake him up would kill him.
Rachel:So he just needs to stay asleep and like this so that I can poke him with wild abandon. And Garibaldi comes to MedBay with his report. Do
Matt:you know how distracted he would be if he was awake right now? Every time I poked him, he'd scream.
Rachel:Rude. Doesn't
Matt:he? I need to work in peace.
Rachel:How many times am I gonna get to study what plasma does to human flesh? Not often. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. They get
Matt:rare opportunity.
Rachel:They get real mad when you propose it. You propose to
Rachel:You don't know how unethical
Matt:it would be to do this on purpose? I am all about ethics.
Rachel:Ethics is my middle name. Steven, I always do what's right. Ethics Franklin. I always do what's right for me. So he comes back to Garibaldi comes to med bay with his report, and he's like, well, they sealed the bay, but what's left of the bay could fit into a shot class.
Rachel:Ouch. Hey. We got to use alcohol imagery way early. It could fit in a shot class. It could fit in a very tiny glass.
Rachel:And Sinclair's like, okay. So best guess. What do we think happened? And he's like, who the fuck knows? You would think I'm gonna know?
Rachel:Do I have cameras?
Matt:Do I look like an engineer?
Rachel:Because the sensors were knocked offline. Could be some kind of reaction between the beep beep and the pew pew. Like, I don't know what happened, man. We put a lot of we put a lot of weight on the plasma cutter, the plasma thing that they were using. Mhmm.
Rachel:I don't know what the plasma thing was doing, but, apparently, it caused literally every problem. Because every time there's a problem, they're like, it's the plasma driver.
Matt:It it drives plasma?
Rachel:It drives it it you drive around with I don't know. It doesn't matter. Doctor doctor Franklin's like, yeah. You're right. Beep beep.
Rachel:Pew pew. I don't know. Sounds great. Poke. Garibaldi's like, some poor slob probably forgot to close the dampeners on the plasma driver.
Rachel:And Sinclair goes, okay. So you're ruling out sabotage? And Garibaldi goes, I never rule out sabotage.
Matt:Some poor slob probably forgot to close the dampeners on the plasma driver.
Sinclair:Then you're ruling out sabotage.
Matt:I never rule out sabotage.
Rachel:But they are inexperienced in working around the clock. So, I mean, we got options is what I'm saying. Like, the logic
Matt:a possibility for mistakes Yeah. Rather than sabotage.
Rachel:And Ivanova interrupts this moment to call and warn them that a major Liana Kemmer from the president's security staff has arrived. And Garibaldi goes, Liana. Sinclair's like, I'm sorry. Did I just sense tragic backstory? But she has requested an immediate briefing on the Bay explosion, so there's not time to stop and chitchat about this.
Rachel:So they're just like, cool, cool, and they rush off to go meet with her. Sinclair does get a minute while they're walking to be like, okay. You said her name. And then I heard a sting of dramatic music, so I feel like this is important. I just read a book where a character had an actual theme song, and it played from the sky every time he showed up.
Rachel:I feel like Sinclair
Matt:needs that.
Rachel:I feel like Sinclair needs that. And Garibaldi's like, well, I knew her seventeen years ago. Her dad was a friend. She was a real sweet kid.
Matt:So, Garibaldi was 15?
Rachel:No. He's 39.
Matt:So he was 19.
Rachel:20 two. 20 two. Okay. 22. I had
Matt:math wrong.
Rachel:He can't be over 39. He's got to be he's got to be the age of Sinclair or younger.
Matt:Since Sinclair is so wizened.
Rachel:Or he'd be close to retirement. So this is back when he was 15, and he was running the security on your in the ice mining on Europa. What? Why are they mining ice for the water?
Matt:Sure.
Rachel:Okay. I mean, Europa is
Matt:You need a lot of water for space stations.
Rachel:Europa is a water planet, I guess. I mean, it's a water moon.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:It's it's it's fine. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. The next thing in my note is, well, have I got news to for you because she grew up to be a real bitch.
Rachel:And I feel like she was definitely touched by the spirit of the nineties. Maybe that's why she's she's so tense. Mhmm. Because she's got, like, the most nineties, I'm a serious woman makeup I've ever seen in my life. It's it's something else.
Rachel:So they meet up with Liana for a briefing, and she's a little stiff. She's a little stiff this whole episode. I couldn't tell you if this was her acting because she's not in anything else. I can't go and see if this is what she's like or if they really wanted this character to be like this.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:I don't know.
Matt:Two things can be true.
Rachel:Right. Sinclair's like, okay. So, hey, Garibaldi will catch you up on what's happening because he's head of security, and he's looked into this investigation. And he has a wealth of experience, and this is his home turf. So I'm gonna let him take the briefing.
Rachel:And she's like, nah, dog. No. Thanks. In fact, I think I'm gonna kick him out entirely and rely heavily on my own security team that has little to no native knowledge of this very large and very complicated system. And I'm sure that my position as head of the security detail was thoroughly vetted and that my professionalism and lack of conflict of interest has been established ahead of time to ensure maximum security for the president of Earth.
Rachel:Absolutely.
Matt:Oh,
Rachel:wait. I don't think any of that is what happened. They were like, oh, you guys are gonna go to Babylon 5. Garibaldi is the head of security. And she's like, I volunteer as tribute.
Matt:I have to be there. And they're like, wow. All the way out there. You wanna go all the way out there?
Rachel:And she's like, yeah. I love the president. I love being security for the president. You said Garibaldi is the head? Yeah.
Rachel:No. I love being head of security for the president. That's
Matt:why I'm calling. Enough to be sure that this is safe for the president.
Rachel:Yeah. I'm gonna do the best job. The best job.
Matt:I bet Cutter got her volunteered for this so that Oh, I her the the drama between her and Garibaldi would cover up everything he's working
Rachel:on. If he did, it was a it was a good move. I actually mentioned that later. Like, perhaps this was on purpose because they knew she would completely undermine the security efforts and make it possible for them to do everything that they wanna do. They plant a bomb on every single bay doors.
Matt:Wow.
Rachel:They they have the capability and the lack of oversight enough to literally put enough explosive in the Cobra Bay that it would have taken out half the station.
Rachel:Mhmm.
Rachel:Did they not have any security on the Cobra Bay? There wasn't even when they go, there's not even a guard standing outside the door.
Matt:Yeah. Cutter.
Rachel:No. Cutter's not there. Oh, yes. He is there. You're right.
Rachel:Cutter. Only Cutter.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:The only guy that she brought. So she fired every security person on Babylon 5, and it was just her and her bro Cutter.
Matt:Well, everybody else
Rachel:do a better job.
Matt:Everybody else on the team was was home guard, and they all skedaddle.
Rachel:The lack of repercussions for her for the shit that she pulls, we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about. Because, escaping from what should be severe consequences is apparently a trigger for me. And, we're we're gonna unpack that together. But Garibaldi immediately caves.
Rachel:Well, first of all, Liana needs an HR class on how to act diplomatically with other officers of Earth Force because she's just heavy handed this whole time and immediately loses their cooperation.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:That's not how you that's not how you advance your career by being the bitch that nobody wants to work with and who actually is also still bad at your job. If you're gonna act like that, you then need to be the best.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And if you're not, you're just burning bridges. But Garibaldi immediately caves and hands the investigation over to Liana. He's like, fine. Whatever. Garibaldi out.
Rachel:You can have it. It's fine. I didn't want it anyway. I have better stuff to do.
Matt:I think he's trying to avoid
Rachel:He's trying to avoid the conflict.
Matt:He's trying to avoid the personal issue interfering.
Rachel:Right. He's the only one acting not out of personal vendetta.
Matt:The only one acting professionally?
Rachel:Yeah. Mhmm. For one shockingly, for one, which just highlights how unprofessional Liana is. Mhmm. But Garibaldi heads out to the Zocalo, and Sinclair is in hot pursuit.
Rachel:He runs after him. Like, hold on. I gotta go figure out what's happening. And I wanna pause for a minute because at the back of the Zocalo, there's these colored tubes that are all standing up next to each other underneath the sign that says Zocalo. Mhmm.
Rachel:And I really, in my head, want that to be like a slushy cocktail bar. And so when you come on the Zocalo, you can buy, like, a slushy ticket, and then you can just go back and get alcoholic drinks. Yeah. I think that would be really fun. So, anyway, when they build Babylon 5, do take note.
Rachel:I'm pretty sure the Zocalo should have a alcoholic slushy bar at the back. Maybe there's one nonalcoholic slushy in case you brought your kids to Babylon 5.
Matt:Or you're an alcoholic.
Rachel:I mean that also. Fine.
Matt:And you wanna stay sober.
Rachel:And you wanna also have a slushie. But Garibaldi catches or Sinclair catches Garibaldi, and he's like, what? What? What the hell just happened? And Garibaldi goes, it's personal.
Rachel:And he's like, it's not personal.
Matt:I'm recusing myself.
Rachel:He goes, it's not personal when it affects the whole station. He does this, like, hand slap on his chest where he's like, well, It's like a mini Sinclair smash. Like, know how much I'm holding my attention back right now. Unfortunately for both of them, Jakar immediately pops up. He's like, Sinclair.
Rachel:It's his slushy down. He's like, You're just the man I wanna see. I wanna complain about the seating chart for the president's banquet. And so Sinclair is trying to talk to Garibaldi, trying to sort of head off whatever this trouble is that's brewing. And and Jacar is like, yes.
Rachel:Yes. But I am seated next to the, says it very dramatically. He goes, have you ever seen them eat? This is an affront to the entire Narn Federation. Okay.
Rachel:I think later, we find out the Vri are the ones that only eat rotten meat.
Matt:Okay.
Rachel:Don't quote me on that, but they know that there's a race that only eats, like, carrion, And nobody wants to be in the quarters next to them because they have to let their meat sit out and rot. Ferment. Age. Age. Meanwhile, Garibaldi has caught someone stealing at the Zocalo, and he decides that this is the perfect moment to take out some of his frustration
Matt:With extreme prejudice.
Rachel:Someone he can apparently beat up with little to no repercussions because
Matt:He's the head of security.
Rachel:Nineteen ninety four. Sure. That's this guy has tattoos. He's completely within his rights to beat him up in public, apparently. He actually says, has all that tattoo ink gone to your head?
Rachel:As he's, like, slamming him against
Matt:the wall.
Rachel:And Sinclair has to come in and break it up, and he looks so serious. I I love Michael O'Hare's like, I'm being really serious right now face. I'm so mad at you right now.
Matt:Joking, guys.
Rachel:I'm not joking, guys. I'm so mad at you, Garibaldi. It's, like, scowl face. And he ends up taking him for a drink, which is just water straight up. Garibaldi is like, I need a drink.
Rachel:Water straight up. He's like, I got mad. Okay? Hull rats like that do that to me sometimes. Sinclair looks at him like, mhmm.
Rachel:Okay. Now use your big boy words. How do we say that? How do we say that like a big boy? If you look
Matt:This is why Garibaldi usually hangs out in his office reading his newspaper.
Rachel:Right. Because Sinclair just has to give you the look, and all of a sudden, you're like, let me tell you everything terrible that's ever happened to me
Matt:in my past. Well, no. The to prevent the violence because he hires people who can handle things more civilly. Yeah.
Rachel:Maybe that's what it is. He's like, I'm on a hair trigger. I gotta watch out. This is why this is why I ride around in the tubes instead. Yeah.
Rachel:And he's like, alright. And then, somewhere soft jazz starts playing cigar music. Their cigar smoke drifts across the screen because he has his we're ready for his. We're preparing for the tragic backstory. And he's like, seventeen years ago, I was working on the ice mining operation on Europa.
Matt:Battlehearted 19 year old.
Rachel:Battlehearted 19 year old. I was it was a real cesspool. Whatever. I love how you thought, oh, that'd be 36. I he could be younger.
Rachel:He could be younger, so then he could be a battle hardened 19 year old. I don't know. Europa takes longer to go around the Earth or go around because the Earth is the sun. Europa takes longer to go around the sun. So, technically, if he is 19 Europa years, he'd be older than Sinclair.
Rachel:Whatever. The battle hardened 19 year old, Garibaldi was working on the ice mining operation on Europa. There was murder, theft, dust peddling, you name it.
Matt:Half the command staff was on the take, and the other half just didn't give a damn.
Rachel:And it really gives you perspective about his fatalist attitude in the episode with the home guard
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:Where Sinclair's like, can you please catch the people who are doing the bad thing? And he's like, I mean, I would, but, like, most people don't
Matt:too many of them.
Rachel:Most people don't want you to catch the people doing the bad thing. I mean because he's literally worked places where when you if you catch people doing the bad thing, you're the one that gets punished.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:So he has a complicated relationship with, systemic corruption.
Matt:Fascism?
Rachel:Corruption. He has a he has a complicated relationship with corruption. And this is my favorite part. Half of the command staff was on the take. Half didn't give a damn, except me.
Rachel:I was the paragon of cop propaganda that I am now. I only fight for what is right. I only do what must be done.
Matt:Principled officer I'm the only one who can stand their ground.
Rachel:Ever try and uphold the law when no one cares? After a few weeks, I started drinking hard just to get through the night. I can't I'm trying to get through this. Then I met Frank Kemmer, the plot device. When the job got tough, I would go spend time with him, and that's where I met Liana.
Rachel:Uncle Mike, she used to call me. And Sinclair's like, oh, it's really cute. You had friends, Garibaldi?
Matt:That's right. I never knew that
Rachel:about Shane. That about you. And then my notes, I said they really should have had some fedoras and a couple of cigarettes for this scene
Matt:just to
Rachel:really set the tone. So they keep me sane and sober for a while, but I was starting to make a dent in the rackets, and I got under someone's skin. Even the way this dialogue is written feels like it should be delivered like he's in a nineteen fifties cop drama.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Word came down that they were gonna try and take me out, and I thought I could handle it, but I was wrong. They rigged a shuttle pad, and Frank was bringing in the last run of the day. Just as he touched down, it blew. You could see the fireball for a mile in all directions. And they basically blamed it on him.
Rachel:They had it all figured, pinned it on my negligence. Core didn't want a scandal, so they just hushed it up and blackballed me. So rather than admit that everybody on this station, everybody on this ice mining operation was corrupt, They were just like, no. There was one corrupt guy, that guy. And
Matt:Well, the corrupt ones keep the ice flowing. The ice must flow.
Rachel:Wow. That was good. That that was good. I really that's why you're my riffle biffle. Mhmm.
Rachel:Because you can throw that shit out just on a dime, man. It was good. I mean, you think this is ridiculous. Right? But I literally got blackballed in our town because I asked for life jackets for the public pools.
Rachel:I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. That's not even remotely a joke. I literally said, can we please use life jackets? And they had a special city council meeting to talk about how I was harassing the lifeguards.
Rachel:I made the paper. I just I'll put that out there. Anyway, none of that was as bad as telling Frank's family. Liana didn't even cry. She just died inside.
Rachel:Sinclair's like, okay. How about you? Because I got crawled back into the bottle, and I didn't come out for a long, long time. And Sinclair's like, oh, k. And then his little his little communicator goes beep boop, and he's like, yes.
Rachel:Sorry. It's weird. Everything was black and white for a minute there. Why does it smell like why does it smell like cigars? Is someone doing beep poetry?
Rachel:What is happening right now? But it's a call from med lab that they're needed immediately. So they run to med lab because Cutter and Kemmer are waking up the guy from the explosion. This moment needed consequences.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:She murders this man.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:We joke a lot about doctor Franklin, But doctor Franklin at least had the decency to not wake this guy up so that he would die in pain. Right. And later, she's going to justify this by saying that in his med report, it was already written that death was certain, which means she accessed his medical records.
Matt:That's a good point.
Rachel:His private medical records, which you can't even do in pursuit of an investigation now.
Matt:She's got presidential authority.
Rachel:Which she throws around like it's the biggest dick on in the universe.
Matt:Like, it's Sinclair's dick.
Rachel:Which well, that's actually later. It's in my notes.
Matt:Until until Sinclair actually stands up to it.
Rachel:Sinclair's like, oh, no. We're fucking done with this. But this moment, this is this is one of those nineties moments where we sacrifice the realism of what would actually maybe happen to somebody who did this for the sake of plot.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:We saw this a lot in, forever night where they would do some like, there's an episode where a meteor is going to hit the earth, and there is mass rioting around the whole earth. And currency markets crash, stock markets crash. And a week later in the next episode, everything's back to normal, and we're all fine.
Matt:Yep.
Rachel:This is a similar event where, honestly, Sinclair could have written this up and had her at least suspended pending an investigation.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:Because she's not a medical doctor. She can't interpret what is written in the notes. His doctor, doctor Franklin, forbid her from doing this, and she did it anyway. And in the end, she doesn't she's not even the one who stops the bombs. So it doesn't even lead to a successful investigation.
Matt:Right. But
Rachel:they wake this guy up, and she's like, hey. I'm I'm Liana Kemmerer. You have to tell me the truth. What happened? And he's like, no accident.
Rachel:Bomb. And this whole scene is so ridiculous. Yeah. Like, no one is taking this guy's deathbed confession as 100% proof.
Matt:He can't lie.
Rachel:Yeah. Well, why would a dying man lie? I don't know. A lot of reasons. Because he's never gonna have to face the consequences of his a dying man has every, if not more reason to lie.
Rachel:Right.
Matt:There's there's no
Rachel:There's gonna be no consequences for his lying. Why would why would that He could be delirious. He could be delirious. He could what did you give him to wake him up?
Matt:He could've he could've been saying Garibaldi as in call Garibaldi. Yeah. Garibaldi did it. Tell him about it.
Rachel:Yeah. Garibaldi did it. Garibaldi figured it out. Ask Garibaldi. He knows the answer.
Rachel:Not Garibaldi did it. Garibaldi planted the bomb.
Matt:What did she give him to wake him up?
Rachel:Would this be considered under the influence? She had to give him medication to wake him up.
Matt:Oh, yeah.
Rachel:Anyway, luckily, Sinclair's balls are always bigger, and he just uses them to shove the guy out of the way with sheer authority. He's like, move, or I'll fucking put you out an airlock. And the guy's like, right this way, sir. You may pass now.
Matt:You make a convincing argument.
Rachel:Convincing argument. So in my notes, I wrote, and it's true. There is no way that this guy's testimony would be admissible. But he pins it on Garibaldi and then dies. And doctor Franklin's like, he he's dead.
Rachel:You killed him. This is some bullshit. This is bullshit. I'm not over this scene. This scene is so we we gloss over this.
Rachel:We don't like, we come back to it kind of. But this guy we don't know that this guy was they said his his death was almost certain. Right? But he still wasn't dead, and then she acted, and then he was dead. So my death is also certain.
Rachel:Eventually, I will die. Can you kill me right now?
Matt:He was just being, He was being esoteric.
Rachel:Everybody dies. Maybe he puts maybe he's nihilist.
Matt:He puts every single chart. Every single of every single one of doctor Franklin's medical charts that the father says, death is certain as a reminder of our mortality.
Rachel:Because being human is just knowing that there's so many different ways existential.
Matt:This was not a medical comment.
Rachel:That's how I signed them, you bitch. Everybody dies. Okay?
Matt:All of my medical staff knows that that's how to identify doctor Franklin's charts.
Rachel:Yeah. Because at the end, he just goes, of course, he won't live. But then again, who does?
Matt:And you're not a medical doctor. You don't know.
Rachel:Interpret that shit? I am also gonna die. If you killed me right now, is it not murder? Because eventually, I would have died anyway. You just dropped me off where I was going, where I was already headed.
Rachel:That's not how that works. That is not how that works. I am so mad at this scene, but I'm gonna have to move. I'm gonna have to I'm sorry. I just they go immediately from that to this tense meeting in Sinclair's office because she's just murdered a man on his station.
Rachel:Mhmm. And she's staring directly at Sinclair like, mhmm. I had every right. Mhmm. And Garibaldi goes, are you nuts?
Rachel:He was lying because he's like, no. It was Garibaldi. He planted the bomb. That's how it ended. That's how his death.
Rachel:That's how he died. She goes, why would a dying man lie? Well, I don't know. Lots of different reasons. People die for people lie for lots of different reasons.
Rachel:You think nobody's ever had a false dead deathbed confession before?
Matt:Never happened.
Rachel:Are you how did you get this job? How did she get this job? Seventeen years ago, she was two.
Matt:She's a battlehearted 19
Rachel:year old. 19 year old.
Matt:That's a reference to Kate and Hannah.
Rachel:I just well, she ate. So now she's 25, and she's the head of presidential security. If everybody can do stuff that young, it makes sense why everyone's like, wow. Why are you 39, and you're you're stuck as just head of this backwater station.
Matt:How about this? Ten years ago, ninety nine percent of EarthForce staff was eradicated.
Rachel:Oh, that's a good point, actually.
Matt:And so there are rapid promotion paths for anybody that's mildly competent. You're correct.
Rachel:Yep.
Matt:There we go.
Rachel:Yeah. That
Matt:that's an intermediary versus justification Okay.
Rachel:For Yeah. Why all these people are so young.
Matt:Every, yeah, every young person in a command position.
Rachel:Yeah. Okay. And, also, why they're like, wow. Why didn't you take a higher position? Because there was a ton of job openings.
Matt:And why it's remarkable how old Sinclair is.
Rachel:Oh, yeah. Because some of
Matt:you are people that would be that old in the military are people who survived the line.
Rachel:Yeah. That's a good point.
Matt:Or they were elsewhere. But they called everybody back to Earth.
Rachel:Yeah. They did. And everybody was on the line. Yep. And 90% of people who were on the line died.
Matt:Ninety nine percent.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Alright. You know what?
Rachel:Good. Yeah. We'll shake on that. You're too far away, but yeah. So Garibaldi says that he caught that guy, Nolan, for busting up an alien shop.
Rachel:And no one's like, oh, why was he trashing an alien business? Is he perhaps anti alien? As in home guard? As in that's really suspicious?
Matt:As in a literal terrorist organization?
Rachel:So this deathbed confession guy has a criminal record, and they're not like, that might hurt his credibility. Even after Garibaldi's like, yeah, he had it in for me. I arrested him. They're like, yeah, even more reason for him to tell the truth. I'm sorry.
Rachel:What? And Garibaldi's like, our initial scans showed no sign of a bomb. And this is when Lianna's like, well, a plasma driver might have covered that up, or you didn't want to find it.
Matt:When you're driving plasma that hard.
Rachel:You know. When you drive plasma, it just erases everything. They whoever did the tech, the control, like, find, control f, find the word tech, replace with plasma driver.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:They're like, in light of this new information, commander, I want mister Garibaldi suspended immediately. They're like, all you have is a name said by a dying man who you killed, by the way. He Garibaldi, not Sinclair even goes, by the way, you killed that guy. He's dead because of what you did. And now you want me to trust you that Garibaldi needs to be relieved of duty.
Rachel:And she's like, math, the log said he was gonna die anyway. And he was a witness, so sue me. I was well within my authority. I wanna know where's that all written down. Does she have a pamphlet she can hand out that's like presidential Lester.
Rachel:Presidential authority in you. Why I'm going to use this phrase to take over literally everything that I want to from here on out.
Matt:And you open literally no precedent in modern day.
Rachel:And you open you open it, and it's just a crayon. I do what I I do what I want. Yeah.
Matt:It's, Ron Swanson's letter that he keeps in his pocket in Parks and Rec.
Rachel:I feel like in the future, Earth, the Earth, like, guidelines of how they do stuff, that's it. It just says, I do what I want. And so every piece of paper that that's to give you authority over something is literally just a copy of that. I do what I want.
Matt:On Earth Alliance. Let me
Rachel:She's like, this is standard procedure if if someone is implicated. I get it. If Garibaldi's implicated, I can understand where you would take him off
Matt:active investigation. Suspect.
Rachel:Yeah. You might take him off active investigation. Like, don't have him be the one who goes and checks out the Cobre Bay without any backup or anyone else or any oversight or anyone checking behind him. But you'd maybe don't you don't decapitate the home the home team when the president is on his way. It just doesn't make any sense.
Rachel:When she goes, I'm taking over security in light of the president's arrival. I cannot begin to describe how bad at this she is. No one is working in teams. No one is checking behind anybody.
Matt:Right. There's a reason for the buddy system.
Rachel:She's not encouraging cooperation with the station. She's not encouraging cooperation with the station security officials. She's literally just trying to take away Garibaldi's job. Yeah. And the president of Earth is on his way.
Rachel:This isn't like the episode with the with the, telepaths. Well, I guess that guy was turning into a god. So, really, even that was still but it was if they fucked up.
Matt:Cutter could be egging her on this whole time too.
Rachel:I don't know. I feel like I I don't wanna take the I don't I don't wanna make her the victim here. I want her to stay the victim because or he wants to her to stay the the perpetrator because I I this is what happens when half of your command staff get killed in a war, and you have to replace them with you have to replace them with what feels like a social media influencer. Like, was she, like, Europa's top fashion model? And they were like, oh my god.
Rachel:She would be perfect for this position, head of presidential security. I don't know. It's really frustrating. She goes presidential authority gives me the right commander, and I'm exercising it. And Sinclair looks like in his mind, he's been check he had three check boxes, and that was the third check box.
Rachel:She's used presidential authority. Three strikes now.
Rachel:Mhmm.
Rachel:You're not fucking gonna get to do it again. So he reluctantly goes over and takes Garibaldi's gun and his link. And Garibaldi's like, please don't do this. And he's like, I actually do have to do this. Like, I I get this part where, like, he has been implicated there.
Rachel:Even though the implication is suspect, there are other people that can step in in and do a similar job to him. So, like, let's take him off the front lines. Can you give me your gun and your link? And he's like, I I fucking hate this. So he tries to go home, but Lou Welch, most nineteen fifties name.
Matt:The name My
Rachel:name is Lou.
Matt:The named security guy. The named security guy.
Rachel:Yeah. He comes back. He's gonna be in it a bunch. But Lou Welch is there because they're searching his quarters. And Liana walks by, and he's like, can we talk?
Rachel:We need to talk about this. Like, we need to you're literally compromising security. And so he go he is actually the only one who stays focused on solving the actual problem. Mhmm. Liana is like, I got my bad guy.
Rachel:It's Garibaldi done and dusted. Yep. And she only thing she is doing is trying to find Garibaldi for the rest of the episode. Meanwhile, he is actually trying to solve the question of who actually planted the bomb since I fucking know it wasn't me.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:So he tries to grab her arm, which is not a great look. I hate it when they do the upper arm grab. Mhmm. The man upper arm grab of, like, I'm gonna whip you around, and now we're gonna have a talk face to face. It's not a great look, but he's feeling desperate, so I get it.
Rachel:Like, you're the president could die because you're so bad at your job. And I I I feel responsible because I feel like our past is what is driving you to do this, and we need to just get this out and get this aired out so that you can actually do your job. And so Cutter and Welch go into search his room. And again, the fact that they aren't working in larger teams is really infuriating.
Matt:Right. The buddy system gives you accountability.
Rachel:They know that they have been infiltrated by extremist groups. They know
Matt:Except it's the infiltrator running running the show.
Rachel:Well, no. Liana isn't. But Liana But
Matt:Cutter's actually doing all the work.
Rachel:Yeah. Liana Liana is so weak willed Mhmm. That Cutter has completely taken over. He's subverted her presidential authority.
Matt:No precedent.
Rachel:He's the shadow head of the he's a dark security Australia.
Matt:Dark make earth great again.
Rachel:Yeah. Oh my god. Anyway, so Liana and Garibaldi do get to have a moment where they get to kind of say what they wanna say. And he's like, look, I love Frank like he was my brother. And when he died, and Liana's like, yeah.
Rachel:You were just protecting yourself. I get it. And he's like, no. I made a mistake. I know that.
Rachel:But you know that I would never do that to him. I would never blow your dad up. You gotta know that. And she's like, I mean, I yeah. But I might have believed you if you'd come and talk to me.
Rachel:She was like, six.
Matt:Right. What was he supposed to say?
Rachel:What was he supposed to say? Was he supposed to sit down and be like, so your dad is now in pieces, but I want you to know that that was not me. Was that gonna help? She's like, you just crawled back into the bottle and ran. And now I'm having this wildly inappropriate little temper tantrum mistake.
Matt:The same time.
Rachel:You managed it, though. You did it. You rolled away in the bottle. I just
Matt:He called back in the bottle. That's how he rolls.
Rachel:Even if she was 10 even if she was generously 10
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:What was he supposed to do? Sit down and be like
Matt:Stay around.
Rachel:But he couldn't. He literally got, like, ostracized. Yeah. He got kicked off of Europa. People were trying to kill him.
Rachel:If he had stayed with her, they might have continued trying to kill her. He may have been fleeing to keep her safe.
Matt:But he can't get the words out.
Rachel:Did you ever think about that, Liana? No. Like, maybe he doesn't know how to articulate. Maybe he was also young, and didn't know how to handle the situation, and handled it poorly. And maybe we need to give him a little fucking grace.
Rachel:I don't know. Maybe we could try that.
Matt:No grace.
Rachel:He's cleaned up his act. He's got a good job.
Matt:He's been running this place for years.
Rachel:Yeah. Maybe we can look at
Matt:his There's only been, like, three dozen knives
Rachel:that go through. It's fine. A couple of guns. It's okay. There was that one moment where eight aliens got attacked in, like, a week.
Rachel:But, hey. I mean, everybody slips. It's fine. I just it's fine. I get it.
Rachel:The whole point of this is to air this dirty laundry, and they do it. Is it heavy handed? Yes. Is it not the best written moment in all of Babylon five? Also, yes.
Rachel:Because they come back out of the room, and Cutter is like, weirdly, I reached in my pocket while I was in the room, and I pulled out these Centauri ducats.
Matt:And this Hey. I found some stuff in the room. It happened to be in my pocket. I carried it into the room.
Rachel:But I was in the room in
Matt:the room when I pulled
Rachel:it out. And that means that Garibaldi is the bad guy. And I love Garibaldi's
Matt:response. Dunk.
Rachel:I love Garibaldi's response, which is, like, I'm not that dumb. You know I'm not that dumb. Right? Like, you know I'm not that dumb. I would not just get the evidence and be like, and hide it underneath my mattress.
Rachel:I don't wait. Give me a little fucking credit. I if I did it, you'd never know. If Garibaldi did it, you'd never know. You would never know.
Rachel:He's like, maybe this is just another mistake, Garibaldi. Like, you got like, from seventeen years ago, like, when my dad was a mistake.
Matt:Like the last time I got framed?
Rachel:Like that time? That time? Yeah, Liana. Like that moment?
Matt:I think this is like that, Liana.
Rachel:Yeah. And he's like, you know what? Actually, Garibaldi, out. And he he runs. He's like, peace, motherfucker.
Rachel:And he leaves. Well, if he gets captured, there's nothing he can do to to keep investigating. So he's got to run. And this is when Ivanova like, in the background, you can see they're doing, like, a a rotational picture of Garibaldi, and there's, like, beep boop security. And Ivanova calls Sinclair, and she's like, why is there a station wide security alert for Garibaldi?
Rachel:And Sinclair, who's over chatting with somebody in the corner, runs over, and he's like, what? Take that shit down right now.
Matt:And Leon is like, you can't do that. I have evidence against Garibaldi, and I need him captured before the president gets here.
Rachel:Why? So he won't know how incompetent you are? Is that why you need him captured before you get here? And Sinclair is like, that's gonna be a hell and, no. And I have had it up to the top of my extremely large balls with your presidential authority and your bullshit and your personal vendetta.
Rachel:And she's like, I'm well within my rights. And he's like, this is my fucking station, and I think it's time you realize that. Now, Ivanova, get her off my fucking observation dome. And Ivanova is like, with pleasure. So she steps forward and and touches her arm, and she goes, you are going to resist, I hope.
Sinclair:Cancel that alert.
Lianna:You can't do that, commander. I have hard evidence that Garibaldi is part of this sabotage. I want him in custody before the president arrives.
Sinclair:Mister Garibaldi is many things, but he's no saboteur. And I've had it up to here with this personal vendetta of yours. Kill that alert.
Ivanova:Yes, sir. The Bonavitt all security posts cancel fugitive alert immediately.
Lianna:You insist on obstructing me, commander. I have no choice but to invoke presidential authority, Amy.
Sinclair:Sick of that too. This is my station, and it's time you realize that. Lieutenant commander Ivanova, escort major camera off the observation dome.
Ivanova:With pleasure. You are going to resist, I hope. I
Rachel:love Evonava so much. She's like, please give me an excuse to slap that that smug look off your face. And Liana's like, you guys are so mean to me.
Matt:I have crazy angel authority, and then she leaves.
Rachel:And, Ivana was like, she's gonna call and tattle on us. You know, she's just gonna run back to daddy and tell tell daddy president that we were mean to her. And he's like, yeah. But it's gonna buy me time to find Garibaldi before she does. What are they gonna do?
Rachel:Replace me? Who else wants to come all the way out here and be be out of battle on five. And Ivana was like, okay. Actually, let's start a level six maintenance check on all station communication channels. And ladies
Matt:That'll take comms down for hours.
Rachel:And she's like, yeah. Yeah. It will. Mhmm. Yep.
Rachel:You're right. And then we go to the casino because Garibaldi's like, who should I go to? Who will help me in my moment of need? Londo. Londo.
Rachel:Who's happily drinking at the bar? Later, they're gonna be like, Cutter and Liana are talking, and they're like, wow. Ivanova and Sinclair are doing everything they can to hinder our investigation. And Cutter's like, yeah. Well, according to his file, they're his only friends.
Rachel:That and the Centauri ambassador, Londo. And I I I have to say, I'm pretty sure Londo hacked his file and just put in there, also, Londo is his good and dear friend. It's written in there in, like, Centauri font.
Matt:Centauri font.
Rachel:You know, they all have their own font, and it's got, like, a little purple flourish at the end. It's like, also, he looks really good in purple. We all look really good in purple. Well, I love how he's supposed to
Matt:be right. Purple. He's magnificent.
Rachel:If you ever want to kick him out of Earthforce, do let me know. I will take him home. He will be my best friend. But I love that he's supposed to arrive in stolen clothes, but they fit him perfectly. He even stole a belt.
Rachel:They're not they're like, would he steal what would he steal? Would he where did he get these?
Matt:He knows all the places.
Rachel:I guess. I guess. And Lando is happily drinking at the bar, which totally Garibaldi crashes his party. He's like, wow. You're out of uniform.
Rachel:Very dapper. He's like, well, I thought about stealing some of your clothes, Londo, but and Londo's like, you know what? Actually, let's let's drop it. I know why you're here. So he tells Londo what's happening.
Rachel:And then he goes, and there were Centauri ducats in my quarters. And Londo goes, oh my God. Do you think that I would do that to you? Are you are you implying that I would frame you, my good and dear friend? And Garapaldi just looks at him for a minute, and he's like, oh, you know, you're right.
Rachel:I totally would. I so totally would. But I didn't do it.
Rachel:Mister Garapaldi, do you really think that I would do such a thing to you, my good and dear friend? In a minute. You're right, but I didn't.
Rachel:But I know who did. You wanna take a guess who he immediately? Okay. He's like, no. I I know I know who would totally do it.
Rachel:And then we cut back to Lianna, who's demanding that Ivanova tell her why the commitcomm channels are offline.
Matt:Oh, communications are down for scheduled maintenance.
Rachel:And she's like, we wouldn't want them broken when the president gets here. And Liana's like, I demand you open a channel to Earth at once. And she's like, oh, I'm a lieutenant commander in Earth Force. You don't demand anything of me. You can request, and I will consider it.
Rachel:And Liana goes, okay. I request that you open a comm channel to Earth. And Liana goes, request denied. Have a nice day. And then go, Liana, out.
Rachel:Yeah. Close the mic drop.
Matt:And she's like, they're being so mean to me. Use the comms on the ship. I know.
Rachel:Yeah. Just go out to the ship. They should be close enough. We can just use our own comm channels. And Cutter's like, I'm not surprised that they're helping him.
Rachel:This is when he's like, his only friends are Sinclair, Ivanova, and Londo? Why is that written in there in different font? Let me go back to Lando who's talking to Garibaldi, and he's like, are you really saying it to Jakar? And he's like, oh, it's totally Jakar. Look at his 100%.
Rachel:Got a guilty face. And he says, you know, when they occupied Ragesh 3, some important scientific stuff went missing, went missing. And to find it, we had to give them hard currency. So he's got a lot of Centauri ducats to work with.
Matt:Just recently.
Rachel:Yeah. And he's like, you'll have to get into the ambassadorial wing. And he's like, oh, yeah. No. I can do that.
Rachel:But just gloss over it. No. We don't explain how he gets in there. No. He's just like, no.
Rachel:No problem. Because he doesn't
Matt:Or Garibaldi has another door in not Garibaldi. Jakar has another door into his rooms from the regular quarters.
Rachel:He's in the Ambassadorial Wing. But you have to wonder, does Garibaldi have a backup card?
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:I don't know. He gets in. That's what matters. And we don't explain how. Don't ask how.
Rachel:He just does. If he knew that it was that easy to exploit the entrance into the Ambassadorial Wing, why didn't he close it up? Or did he leave it open for this contingency?
Matt:Yeah. Emergency backdoor.
Rachel:Maybe he's the only one who knows how to change the passcodes.
Matt:He has the master password.
Rachel:Yeah. But he does borrow money from Londo. And Londo's like, oh, you're very lucky. Elaros has smiled on me recently. Karibaldi's like, Ilaros.
Rachel:And he's like, yeah. Goddess of luck, patron of gamblers, gods by the bushel, gods by the pound. She and I have had a rather long and dubious relationship. He's like, any reason you're being so generous, Londo? And Londo's like, we are alike.
Matt:My good dear friend.
Rachel:We are the odd man out.
Rachel:Who would have thought it? You borrowing money from me. Luckily for you, Ilaris has smiled on me recently. Ilaris? Goddess of luck, patron of gamblers.
Rachel:She and I have had a long and rather dubious relationship. 500 Centari toucans. That should buy you whatever you need. You're being awfully generous. Any particular reason?
Rachel:You're a very suspicious man, Garibaldi. But, yes, there is
Rachel:a
Rachel:reason. We are alike, you and I. We are both, as you say, the odd man out. I have been in your place. I can feel how you are pinned.
Rachel:And it would give me some small pleasure to know that things can work out, even for us. Now go, please. Lead me in
Rachel:And this is the one sentence that is really going to grow into something far more bittersweet as time goes on.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:And he's like, I just wanna know that things can work out for people like us because I have been in your place, and it would give me pleasure to know that we don't all end up
Matt:Like me.
Rachel:Like me. Now fuck off.
Matt:He's like Before I change my mind.
Rachel:He's like, you're alright, Lando. And he goes, well, okay. If they catch you, I'll deny ever seeing you. Good luck. Fuck off.
Rachel:So Garibaldi heads to the Ambassadorial Wing to find Shikar waiting for him. The door opens, and he's like, hi. And I love I love I love that he has never actually lost on this station. Mhmm. The only person who doesn't know where he is is Liana.
Rachel:Everyone else knows full well where Garibaldi is the whole fucking time. It's just a matter of how do we get to him without letting the other people get to him first. Because he's like, in here, mister Garibaldi, I heard you were coming this way. I thought we might chat. He's like, what?
Rachel:What? And Garibaldi goes, well, don't take too long because this whole wing is monitored. And he's like, funny story. Right now, they're all mal malfunctioning.
Matt:Well, what could I man.
Rachel:Well, it's so weird. Oh, and I also took the liberty of seeing you elsewhere and telling the guard you were on a different level. I love seeing both Lando and Jakar interacting with Garibaldi when he is not acting from authority.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Like who are they when Garibaldi is just a dude? And Lando is as helpful as he really feels like he politically can be, and Jakar shoots a shot.
Matt:Is Jakar is as opportunist as he can be.
Rachel:Yeah. You as you would expect him to be. Mhmm. But he ends up refusing a drink. Garibaldi's like, no.
Rachel:Thanks. I don't want I don't want he's like, the tari is very potent or whatever. And he's like, nah. I'm good. And he goes, but can you tell me how you knew I was coming?
Rachel:And he's like, you were talking to Malari, and it was inevitable that he would send you to me. He's like, okay. But how did you know? And he's like, well, I have people who watch Malari, and there's people who watch me. We all watch each other.
Rachel:And I assumed he would blame me. And it makes sense because we've disagreed in the past. And Garibaldi is like, yeah. And it makes sense that you would frame me because we've disagreed in the past. He's like, oh, you know what?
Rachel:Actually, I'll admit it would have been a good idea. But alas, I didn't think of it, and I didn't do it. They're both like, no. I would totally do this to you. Yeah.
Rachel:These are his friends. Oh, no. I'd have fucked with you if I could have gotten away with it. But this time, it's not me. However, I have been following your current plate with great interest.
Rachel:And Garibaldi's like, wow. I didn't even know you cared. And he's like, oh, no. I don't. Yeah.
Rachel:No. I I I don't.
Matt:It's all about opportunities.
Rachel:But I do admire your talents. And what if I told you that right now, there is a ship ready to take you to Narn? Garibaldi's like, I would say why, though? Why? And he's like, oh, you could serve us in any number of ways.
Rachel:This is honestly what is should be happening in The US right now where these people are getting laid off. Hey. Mhmm. There is a glut of dedicated, talented workers on the market right now.
Matt:Oh, I've I've seen some comments like, you you know, this is how foreign states recruit assets. Right?
Rachel:Yeah. This is exact this is what's happening right now. Yeah. Jakar, the foreign state is like, hey. You look like you're not being appreciated for your talents where you're at.
Rachel:Would you like to go where you would be appreciated? You could be an analyst, a security expert, a cryptographer.
Matt:You're an expert on the inner workings of your own government. Yeah. And I love could use that information.
Rachel:I love the way your mind works. I think we this could be a great partnership. And if you're, you know, if you're homesick, eventually, we could arrange for you to go back to Earth space with the correct genetic alterations, which would also serve our basically, we can send you back as a spy. We could make you narn, and then we can send you back as a spy. And Garibaldi Or
Matt:just make you look like a different human.
Rachel:Yeah. Garibaldi is like, you want me to betray my own world? And he's like, stop seeing things in black and white. Stop seeing things.
Matt:Open your mind to the possibilities.
Rachel:Spy is such a big word. The universe runs on three things, energy, matter, and enlightened self interest.
Rachel:You want me to betray my own world? Stop seeing things in such absolute terms. The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements, energy, matter, and enlightened self interest.
Rachel:I love that line so much.
Matt:And it's going to be such a contrast to where Jakar ends up.
Rachel:I know. But in this moment, he's like, hey. We all get ahead by, you know, keeping our eyes on the prize. You want are you tired of being shit on by earth the earth government? Well, you're in luck.
Rachel:We will appreciate you. He's like, they're gonna catch you. And they're gonna take everything from you.
Matt:Right. They're not going to kill you.
Rachel:No. They're just gonna take everything you love from you. And Garibaldi is like, well, I'm a still have to pass. And he goes, I mean, okay. I think you're being an idiot because without this state without your position, this station is not safe for you, which is true.
Rachel:Call it a lifestyle. Like, I my voice broke at just the right moment there. Call it a lifestyle. Then he tips his fedora and walks out the room. Meanwhile, the whole Zeta wing has arrived, and they, like, come through the jump gate.
Rachel:Because remember, the president is on his way to present this fighter wing. Remember that that whole thing that was happening
Matt:in the background?
Rachel:Yeah. This is when Garibaldi goes to see Negraff. He goes to see Negraff after he breaks into the ambassador's wing.
Matt:So where does he need to get to that has more access?
Rachel:Or it
Matt:requires higher access.
Rachel:Says everywhere anywhere on the station.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:I think he needs to get into computer systems. I think he needs he needs access to probably, like, more probably the Ambassador wing is easier to get into than, like, the Earth Force, like Command dome and security offices and Cobra bays. But he goes to see McGrath, and I fucking knew he knew McGrath. I knew it. Mhmm.
Rachel:We called it. You heard it here first. He's like
Matt:Well, at least this is our first proof that Garibaldi is in fact not McGrath in costume.
Rachel:Oh, for for this episode. This is Dylan. It's Dylan's shift to be McGrath. He's like, we both know you can fix just about anything on this station. I need access to restricted sectors.
Rachel:And he's like, fix nothing. I do business, legitimate business. And Garibaldi's like, the fuck you do? You don't trust me? And he's like, no.
Rachel:You're the police. He's like, not right now. I'm not the police. And he's like, just because you're not the police doesn't mean you're not the police. Now get the fuck out of here.
Rachel:GTFO Garibaldi. And so he ends up getting escorted out, and they're waiting for him outside Negraff's door because he probably has a file that's like Negraff. And they're like, oh, that's where he's gonna go. And so they're waiting for him, and he gets shot at. And he ends up, like, popping out of this little hatch into another hallway.
Rachel:And as soon as he opens the hatch, atmosphere from the Nagrath area starts, like, out.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:Is there not some kind of an airlock there?
Matt:There should be. Because he's wearing a breather mask.
Rachel:Because he's wearing a which he can't take off until he's out in in the other Mhmm. It's fine. Why is this access way here?
Matt:Ventilation.
Rachel:Okay. Ventil ventilate? What are they ventilating? K. Why are the doors decoratively shaped?
Rachel:Why are none of the doors rectangular
Matt:or round? Musical.
Rachel:Do you know how often I would kick that little bit at the bottom?
Matt:I know. Right? The shindinger.
Rachel:It's to call it. Because it comes around, and then it goes down at an angle, and then there's just a little, like, boop where the last 12 inches juts back into the doorway. I would kick that shit constantly.
Matt:Yep.
Rachel:Yeah. Put that out there. That's bad design. You heard it here first. But Garibaldi gets ambushed and beat up.
Rachel:That's what happens. And he should have known this was coming because he goes through the door into an empty room with a bunch of bugs. Yeah. He should have been like, oh, no. This is where the ambush is gonna happen.
Rachel:Oh my god. Why are there chains hanging from the ceiling? This doesn't make any sense.
Matt:This is one of the cobra veins.
Rachel:Like, the come down on these chains that are hanging from the ceiling.
Matt:So why is the room that tall?
Rachel:Why is the room that tall? If these chains are used to, like, attach to a box and then winch around the room Mhmm. That means that they are on, like, tracks, which means there's nothing above them, theoretically speaking.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:So were the Drazi clinging to the ceiling?
Matt:There's a catwalk.
Rachel:Why is there a catwalk?
Matt:For them to stand on while they wait.
Rachel:Okay. It's fine. It doesn't matter. He gets beat up. He gets, like, really badly beat up until he's punching them.
Rachel:He's punching them and kicking them. He wraps the chain around this one guy's neck and, like, pulls him against this support beam. He is fighting for his life. Sinclair shows up and punches all of them one time, and they dip. He's Sinclair smashes those motherfuckers.
Rachel:He's like, Sinclair smash. And they're like, oh, dude.
Matt:Baldy. I showed you. You gotta put your whole body into it.
Rachel:Your entire upper upper torso.
Matt:With your hips.
Rachel:Whack. They're like, oh, no. It's Sinclair. Get out of here before he kills you.
Matt:You're punching with your hands. I punch with my hips. Punch with
Rachel:my balls. My whole
Matt:punch with my mind.
Rachel:Of course, there's a hole in his mind. He punched a hole through it. But I
Matt:was referencing the gunslinger.
Rachel:Oh, yeah. Oh, no. I got do
Matt:not punch with my fist. I punch with my mind.
Rachel:And he's like, what are you doing here? And Sinclair goes, I'm trying to keep you from frying your own butt. I have no end of respect for the the types of phrases they had to come up with to circumvent swearing.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:Like, I'm trying to save your fucking ass, Garibaldi, but what he says is, I'm trying to keep you from frying your own butt. And later, he calls him more trouble than a toilet full of cement.
Matt:Which I looked up, and I'm like, where did that come from? It came from Sinclair.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. There's one quote on the Internet, and it's like, Jeffrey Sinclair says, you're more in trouble than a toilet full of snakes. It doesn't make any sense.
Matt:Sense. Was this ad libbed, or was this written in the script?
Rachel:It was written in the script. I hope it was written in the script. And he's like, I've been tracking you through security reports, Garibaldi. Literally, I've just been going, look. There's Garibaldi.
Rachel:Oh, that door got open. There he is. Oh, he appears to be in the why is he talking to Jakar? What's he doing? It's fine.
Rachel:And then he goes, Michael, I can help you. Like, would you please stay with me for five fucking minutes? We can figure this out together. Garibaldi is like, no. I'm a ghost in the wind.
Rachel:I am the lone man on the mountain. I'm completely dependent on my friends for help while believing that I am totally alone and friendless, and he just disappears off down the hallway. The only reason he manages to stay away stay in the wind this long is because his friends are helping him. He's like, I'm doing this alone. I'm the lone wolf.
Rachel:Okay. Only we cut Garibaldi.
Matt:I I spent five minutes, and I found you. And I just had a look at the thing
Rachel:that was like, oh, why would that door open? That door never opens. I don't even know why we have that door. Oh, that's definitely Garibaldi. And then I came here, and then I was like, where's the nearest empty room full of boxes?
Rachel:That's probably where he's headed. Oh, a
Matt:pack of were spotted heading through a empty room with boxes
Rachel:Running along the catwalk.
Matt:Right next to Negraff. Oh, yeah. Garibaldi would totally see Negraff, and they're probably gonna ambush him. Okay.
Rachel:Yeah. I'm right here. I knew you well enough to find you just through security reports, and Garibaldi's like, deuces, and he he dips.
Matt:Oh, I bet it's Welch. Welch is keeping dibs on all the security stuff.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:And he's like, hey, Sinclair.
Rachel:I know where he's at.
Matt:Here he
Rachel:is. Yeah. I mean, he could. Garibaldi has friends. Mhmm.
Rachel:Even though maybe he had other friends, but when Londo hacked his thing, he changed all of his known associates to just Londo. So Earth Force one is getting closer. I love how we had to, like, pepper this in here because otherwise you would totally forget that the whole point of this is to make the station secure for, oh, I don't know, the president. Mhmm. And this is when Sinclair finally gets orders from a person above Liana to cooperate fully because he's finally pushed back enough.
Rachel:She had to she had to throw a temper tantrum and tattle.
Matt:She had to go through the actual chain of command.
Rachel:Oh, go figure. I guess you could call it that too if you wanted to. She had to use her chain of command. And then she's like, I trust our positions are now clear. And Sinclair's like, okay.
Rachel:Well, I wanna find him as much as you do. The only difference is I haven't already judged him. And she goes, I resent that implication. And he goes, that's your privilege. I like that line too.
Rachel:Yeah. I resent that. You have a right to resent that. It's your privilege. But if you weren't so twisted up inside, you'd realize that you don't want justice.
Rachel:You just want blood. You haven't done your job from the minute you walked on the station. I'm doing your job for you.
Matt:You've been so blinded.
Rachel:I'm doing your job for you, and someday you're gonna see that. And they're like, well, we've got eyes on Garibaldi. Finally, somebody spotted him, and he's been paying for everything with ducats. Everyone calls them ducats except Londo who calls them ducats.
Matt:Well, yeah. He's saying it correctly.
Rachel:I I just love that Peter Jurassic showed up and he was like, what if and I'm just spitballing here. Lando had a weird accent. And they're like, okay. And then the first the first extra that came on to be Centauri, they were like, can you talk like Lando? And they were like, no.
Matt:No. Centauri don't talk like that. No. That's just Lando.
Rachel:It's literally just Lando. Yeah. I wonder if it's like the, North Atlantic accent. Mhmm. The Hollywood accent from the fifties where they had that
Matt:The made up accent?
Rachel:Yeah. Maybe it's just a made up or maybe he made it up himself to, like, practiced it in the mirror. Like, I just sound so much more regal when I have my own accent.
Matt:I sound like royalty.
Rachel:It's just good. Peter didn't have to go that hard for us, and he did. And I I appreciate it. And they're like, oh, he's playing for things with ducats? Well, we must have only seized part of his payoff.
Rachel:That's a really big assumption. Very large assumption. Considering later, we find out that the reason that Cutter had ducats is because he got a hundred thousand dollars deposited into his bank account, and then he withdrew them on Babylon 5 as Centauri ducats.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Which means there's a Centauri ducat ATM on Babylon 5 where anyone can take out Centauri ducats.
Matt:Yeah. That's that's the ATM on the Zocalo that Lando uses for his gambling money.
Rachel:Right. So there's literally no reason to believe that this is part of his payoff.
Matt:Right. It could just be the most, like, dense currency, like, high value Especially item currency.
Rachel:When they know he knows Londo, and they probably are fully aware that he met with Londo in in the casino
Rachel:Mhmm.
Rachel:You have to assume Londo could have given him money. And if he gave him anything as he is Centauri, he would have given him Centauri ducats. There's the leap that she make. The logical leaps that she makes is are astounding. She storms off, and Sinclair asks to be patched through to Lou Welch.
Rachel:As soon as she leaves, he's like, hey. Get me Lou. Can somebody get me Lou on the line? I'd like him to do Liana's job for her, which in this case is search Nolan's quarters because it turns out no one has actually searched Nolan's quarters. They only ever searched Garibaldi's quarters.
Matt:Right. They did not establish died, they'd
Rachel:He was the only one in the Cobra Bay when a bomb exploded. Yeah. And they're like, well, he wouldn't have blown himself up. Yes. Because no one has ever accidentally detonated a bomb or blown themselves up intentionally with a bomb ever before.
Matt:Fake news.
Rachel:Ever before. Never. Never in the whole history of Earth has that ever happened ever ever. So we definitely should never have gone to check on Nolan's quarters to find out if perhaps he is the one who planted the bomb, and then he falsely implicated Garibaldi knowing that he was dying and there would be no consequences for his, misdirection. I'm trying to move through this emotionally.
Rachel:I hope you can you see that? Can you
Matt:I can see you're trying.
Rachel:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So then Garibaldi goes to a bar called Happy Days.
Rachel:Happy Days, d a c e. Mhmm. The only real comment that I have for this whole section is that he never once looks at anybody and goes, hey. But this is for him to go get drunk. This is his he finally breaks.
Rachel:He's had too much. He gets a bottle given to him. He gives this guy a docket for his hat. He gives the hat back, and the guy's like, well, if you don't want the hat here, have my bucket. I'm going to the casino.
Rachel:So he dips off with his, like, dollar coin. And it turns out he's not going to the casino. He's going to turn Garibaldi in. So there must be some kind of a reward.
Rachel:Mhmm.
Rachel:And then we come back to the bar, and we do my favorite thing in the world, which is come back at the end of a story. Like, my favorite storytelling trope. Because he's like, if I could do that, I wouldn't need an encounter suit. The drowsy guy next to him collapses into his own food. So he doesn't laugh, but
Matt:And he drank a good half of that bottle.
Rachel:Yeah. And then he's getting ready to leave, and he does, like, a whole, this is the best place I've ever been to on Babylon 5. They should add this to the tour. Then he hits the light fixture and leaves and gets caught immediately despite the fact that he takes evasive maneuvers, which he likes.
Matt:He he pulls off, drunk pretty well.
Rachel:Yeah. He trips over a box. And then Liana, Liana, who just murdered a man, would like to continue pointing that out, walks up and goes, drunk again, uncle Mike. And then she, like, fuzzes, and she's a young child.
Matt:And it's like, drunk again, uncle Mike.
Rachel:And that right there is why she should have been removed from command for this. Yeah. And Cutter's like, it's okay. I'm gonna go. We've caught Garibaldi.
Rachel:Isn't that great? We now finally have the time to go inspect the Cobra Bays now that the president has arrived, and the ships are here, and we are within five minutes of them using the COBRA base. I think I will finally go and look at them, me and me alone with no oversight. Is that okay with you? And Liana's like, I'm completely fine with that.
Rachel:And then we get this really cool look of the shot where Liana is walking around Garibaldi, and the camera stays fixed on her.
Matt:Right. She's she's still fixated on Garibaldi. And instead of going to actually do her job while Garibaldi is held in custody, she wants to just gloat.
Rachel:Right. But it's an interesting way of illustrating that everything that she's doing is literally revolving around Garibaldi because the camera literally revolves in a circle as she's walking.
Matt:Like, two circuits around the room.
Rachel:It's pretty impressive. It's a really cool, really long shot too.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:She's like, you never really do change, do you, Michael? Like, he had, though, until you got here, and you literally accused him of blowing up a ship. Like, you accused him of doing the same thing to Babylon 5 that you think he did to your dad, and then you pushed him until he started drinking. And now you're like, see, you're just the same as you always were. He goes, I thought I had changed until you showed up.
Rachel:And she's like, okay. Well, you just tell me what you did. You tell me how you did it, and then you can rest. I'll let you rest. I'll kill you like I killed that guy in med lab.
Rachel:Or I'll kill all your friends in front of you first. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. It's presidential authority. You know?
Matt:Well, I'm completely within my rights.
Rachel:And he's like, is that what you want? You wanna tear my life down just like I did yours? And this is when Lou Welch arrives, and he's like, hey. So I just walked into Nolan's quarters and laying on the table were a bunch of Home Guard packets and all the pieces to the bomb and a detonator. Hey.
Rachel:Here. I handed it to you.
Matt:Oh, by the way, I had a buddy with me to sign off on Yeah. I have as a witness.
Rachel:I do have chain of custody for this evidence. You're welcome. Here you go. And she's like, How did Garibaldi get this into Nolan's corner? Yeah.
Rachel:Right. Garibaldi is like, goddamn it. I should have figured it out. We thought he was in a pro Earth, more like anti alien group, but we couldn't prove it. And she's like, oh, so he just blew himself up?
Rachel:Again, yeah, that there's okay. That's fucking fine. She's like, Garibaldi's like, yeah. That's what I'm saying. He didn't know they'd be using a plasma driver created just for the vibration
Matt:to cause it. When you drive that much plasma that hard.
Rachel:And she's like, well, come on. What would be his motivation? Oh, I'm sorry. Now we're gonna worry about motivation. Now we're gonna talk about motive.
Rachel:Now we're gonna talk about
Matt:what he's gonna get out
Rachel:of it. What was Garibaldi's motive, Liana? What does Garibaldi get out of this? What was what was Garibaldi's motivation?
Matt:What was his motivation last time?
Rachel:Oh, it's weird. It's kind of like you he didn't have one, and you didn't care until now. And now you're like, oh, come on. Nolan didn't have any motivation. She says, holding the packet of that says, make the universe pure again on it.
Rachel:He's like, to protest the president if I had a wild guess. Like, I'm pretty sure his motive maybe was to blow up Babylon 5 in front of the president or while the president was here. That feels like a pretty good motive since we know that the home guard wanted to kill all the ambassadors on Babylon 5. I'd like to believe you, Michael, but that supposition doesn't explain how the evidence got in your quarters, that the president is coming here and a known hate group who is well connected enough to bring explosives onto Babylon 5 would plant evidence in the chief security officer's quarters to have him removed from duty to prevent him from catching them makes perfect fucking sense, Lianna. It's not a supposition.
Rachel:If you want to succeed where you know that the guy who caught you before is likely to catch you again, who what game piece do you take off the board? The one that caught you last time. Especially when you can get someone who's emotionally compromised assigned to be the head of security when the president is going to be at Babylon 5.
Matt:You're a pawn, Liana.
Rachel:You are a pawn. You are Garibaldi was the more important piece the entire time. Mhmm. And you were just manipulated to remove him from the
Matt:him out.
Rachel:Yeah. Getting the home team off the field is the first thing I would do. If I was the one who was trying to blow up Babylon 5, that is the first thing that I would do. Create chaos in the security team, remove the guy capable of actually handling it,
Matt:and And have someone incompetent running the show Yeah. For presidential security.
Rachel:That's exactly what I would have done. His past would be no secret, and he already said he has a lot of enemies. So it would not be that hard to manipulate this situation to put it in a place where Garibaldi is not there to stop them. And she's like, well, no one knew you were named except you, me, Sinclair, doctor Franklin. And he's like, yeah.
Rachel:And Cutter. I mean, who cares if they named him? If Nolan was pointing the finger, it could easily have been part of a wider conspiracy, and the evidence could have been planted there as another plot. They could have had an original plot that didn't they didn't need Nolan to point the finger at Garibaldi. It could have been a backup plan.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Cutter coulda had it in his pocket when he walked in the room. You wouldn't know. You didn't go in there. You didn't follow him. The president's voice on the speech is literally the only interaction we get with the president.
Rachel:Because now there's a little moment where the president is giving his, like, talk. And then they announced the fly by of the new wing, and we cut off the president for Ivan and Beth to be like, okay. Now light up. Dramatic lighting, please. So they light the center part of the station.
Rachel:And then Liana is like, let's go check on the base. Because Garibaldi is like, what can it hurt? Let's just go do one more check. What what am I gonna do? Do I have a bomb on me?
Rachel:You already you already searched me. Let's go. And so she goes to check on the bays by herself. She has reasonable doubt about whether or not there are is a bomb.
Matt:She has as much suspicion or I guess she has as much evidence against Cutter as she ever had against Garibaldi.
Rachel:Correct. But what's his motivation, Matthew? Why would Cutter betray her? Oh, no.
Matt:It's not like Cutter blew up her daddy. And that's the only important factor.
Rachel:I know. So she goes to check on the base by herself, but with Garibaldi.
Matt:Right? Bring some more people. God.
Rachel:Do you have a team? Do you have a team? Team team. Team team. Team team.
Rachel:Team. Team. Fire everyone on Floor 6. I don't think they're working as a team. So it's fine.
Rachel:It doesn't matter. It doesn't it's fine. Because then Cutter immediately tases her. He's like, oh, no. Yeah.
Rachel:You can check the base. And Garibaldi finally does a Sinclair smash. He kicks the gun out of the guy's hand, and then Sinclair smashes him. Not hard enough though because then he has to beat him up for a while. Mhmm.
Sinclair:And
Rachel:he ends up grabbing his link, and he's like, Ivanova, stop the launch. You gotta stop the launch. And Ivanova's like, I'm sorry. What? I didn't what?
Matt:Why doesn't Ivanova immediately respond?
Rachel:This kinda reminded me of do you remember in Galaxy Quest Mhmm. When they stop the bomb and it's still counting down? And they're like, oh my god. Why is it not stopping? We've literally unplugged it.
Rachel:Why is it still counting? And it goes down to one and it stops at one. Yeah. And it's because they thought that the bombs had to stop at one. That's what this feels like.
Rachel:Because he's like, abort the launch, and she's like, I'm sorry, Garibaldi. You didn't come quick abort the launch? You want me to abort the launch? She's like, abort the launch right fucking now. And she's like, okay.
Rachel:Fine. Jesus. And so she aborts the launch, and it's like, a launch abort. T minus. One second.
Rachel:He's like, oh, thank god I did it. And then we come back to Garibaldi in Med Bay. And Garibaldi is like, oh, I feel like shit. Sinclair's like, you look like shit. And Stephen Franklin goes, he is not in fact shit, and he can go back to work tomorrow.
Rachel:Wow, doctor Franklin. Wow. Was that the most important thing you he's like, listen. You told me I had to recommit myself to ethics, and I I cannot tell a
Matt:lie. I'm committed to 100% honesty, which he was already committed to 100% honesty, just dubious personal ethics. So contrary to his, his organization.
Rachel:Yeah. So they apparently found bombs on all the bay doors. So no one checked. There were no sweeps. No one went back.
Matt:Oh, no. No. No. No. Cutter went and checked and made sure all those bombs were there.
Rachel:Yeah. He did. You're right.
Matt:He confirmed was successful.
Rachel:So no one but Cutter went in there. She did not personally go.
Matt:Cutter and any Home Guard collaborators.
Rachel:This is why you have multiple redundant security sweeps of a known threatened area.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:It's fine. They're, like, would have taken out half the station. Plus, Cutter had a hundred thousand dollars deposited in his account right after Nolan named Garibaldi. No one checked. No.
Rachel:That doesn't get flagged. A large
Matt:deposit said, hey, Cutter. Has anyone had any large deposits? And Cutter said,
Rachel:uh-uh. Nope. And since she only brought Cutter.
Matt:She she's delegated all operations to Cutter, and she just makes the decisions and tells him what to do. Right. And then he does whatever he was gonna do in the first place.
Rachel:Right. Garibaldi's like, I blew it, Jeff, just like I always do. Things got too rough, and I went right back to the bottle. And Sinclair's like, well, at least you got out and do your job. But maybe next time, don't do it alone, you fucking jerk.
Rachel:And this one, he's like, you're more trouble than a toilet full of snakes. And Garibaldi is like, oh, you sound real sad. Does that mean I might get a pay could I ask for a pay raise right now? Do you feel guilty enough that I can maybe get Sinclair goes, not on your life.
Sinclair:Promise me something. You won't try and fight the battle alone. You're more trouble than a toilet full of snakes, but I couldn't run this station without you.
Rachel:Commander, I sense a huge pay raise coming my way.
Sinclair:Dream on.
Rachel:He laughs. I feel bad for Michael O'Hare. I know he was struggling so much through this season. And when you see these moments where he gets to he's not serious, like, he gets to have a moment of levity.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:You're like, ugh. That must have been so hard.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Yeah. So he gives Garibaldi not Garibaldi. He gives Garibaldi back his gun and stuff. He's like, here. Here's your shit.
Matt:You're back on duty.
Rachel:You work here again.
Matt:Be in your office in the morning.
Rachel:Right? Doctor Franklin, doctor Franklin is like, he could go right now. I could give him a pain pill so he could go right now. And then we come back to, our news network lady who's like, Santiago concluded his speech by encouraging alien governments to work more closely with Earth. A position sure to cause much controversy in the weeks to come.
Rachel:I just gonna leave that right there. The oh, you want us to be more involved in international politics with dignity and decorum
Matt:And respect.
Rachel:Literally any amount of adult use your big words.
Rachel:Mhmm.
Rachel:Sure to cause much controversy in the weeks to come. And then Garibaldi confronts Liana as she's leaving, and you can tell she's forgiven him because she has her hair down. Which means they are letting a murderer leave this station.
Matt:Yep.
Rachel:Even if you come back and say, she had the presidential authority to prioritize the president's life over this guy's life. That is not a thing that one singular person should have.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:She should not have the field authority to decide whether someone lives or dies. What if she woke up the wrong guy?
Matt:Because she's not a doctor?
Rachel:What if she woke him up and he was he had nothing to say? What if she gave him too much of whatever that medication was that she gave him and she killed him outright?
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:What if he was not going to die? Just gonna leave that all right there. But apparently, they lied on the report, so it's okay. Because she goes, thanks for that report of yours. It was very creative.
Rachel:Thanks. Now I can go off and continue wreaking this amount of incompetent havoc all throughout the universe because you failed to, properly report my behavior. Appreciate it. And he goes, I figure if you can nab me on my own turf, you have a future in this. She couldn't nab him until he stayed still long enough to get drunk, but that's fine.
Rachel:It's fine.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:She goes, I screwed up. Yeah. You did. I think we can all agree on that. And he goes, it's okay.
Rachel:We aren't machines. Sometimes we kill people. I've killed people. When we hurt, we lash out.
Matt:And murder people.
Rachel:Yeah. For better or worse, we just do what we can to survive and maybe one day forget how much it can hurt to be human. And then she leaves to take out her vengeance on the next security chief at the next stop. Remember that time I was in traffic and I needed to merge left?
Matt:Garibaldi. Garibaldi was the special case.
Rachel:No. Remember that time I was in traffic and I needed to merge left, and you sped up instead of slowing down?
Matt:You killed my mother.
Rachel:You killed my mother. Your mother wasn't even there, but she died later. And maybe she wouldn't have if I could've gotten into traffic, I maybe would've understood you
Matt:knew the consequences. God.
Rachel:And he's like, I'll see you on your next stop. Where she says, we'll see you next time I come here because he loves Babylon 5. You know? And she's like, great. We need all the friends we can get.
Rachel:And then they hug and, oh, look at that murderer walking away and getting in that ship and just
Matt:I think we know how Rachel feels.
Rachel:Why is this with
Matt:Oops. We forgot she she murdered somebody.
Rachel:It was not a war situation. She was not properly investigating what was happening. She was not trying to figure out how the bomb got on there. She was not trying to figure out known associates figure. If you even had At
Matt:least at least she used the buddy system when she went to the med lab to wake the guy up.
Rachel:Yeah. So that somebody could keep Stephen Franklin from coming in and stopping her. And it happened to be Cutter, of course. So she's not how did Garibaldi get the explosives and everything on the ship? He would have had to have known associates.
Rachel:The known associates could have been
Matt:continuing This would this would not be a solo effort.
Rachel:Right. The known associates could be re could be replanting the bomb or rebuilding the bomb or pivoting. Yeah. While she's looking for Garibaldi, but we wouldn't know that because she never looks. And it's fine.
Rachel:It's one of those moments where we had forty eight minutes with commercials, and we needed to cover Garibaldi's backstory in a way that felt air quotes believable. And I didn't realize how mad this episode made me until I just started talking about it. So there's a limited amount that they could work with. And sometimes you got these episodes where it was like they just railroaded you through the plot. Mhmm.
Rachel:It's not uncommon. It happens a lot in these nineties television shows because sometimes you needed to get a point across. It needed to be entertaining, and you needed it to start and finish in less than an hour.
Matt:But Babylon five was supposed to be different.
Rachel:Well, it is for the most part. And it this is why I tell people to get through season one.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Because flavor wise, in terms of how much
Matt:And the steaks get way different.
Rachel:The steaks get changed. Totally, everything's gonna it does change. And this is just one of those episodes where they needed a monster of the week. They got their monster of the week. We were reminded of the larger political situation that was happening.
Rachel:We got some depth on Garibaldi. We got, some really interesting moments between him and Lando and him and Jakar. Mhmm. We actually got to confirm that Garibaldi knows that McGrath exists, but has just completely failed to catch him doing anything illegal. And yeah.
Rachel:And we've established how
Matt:He he was not able to leverage anything against Negress in his compromised position.
Rachel:Correct. And we know that Garibaldi knows Babylon five better than anybody else. Mhmm. Yeah. And that's that's what we established.
Rachel:Other plot notwithstanding, it's fine. Yeah. It was fine. This is an entertaining episode. If you just sit and watch it, vibes are fine.
Rachel:It's entertaining. Just don't sit down and talk about it for almost two hours. You'll probably put yourself into a rage apparently. When you have to sit down and pick things apart, it's really interesting when you take the scab off sometimes, how much bigger the wound was than you thought it was. That happened a couple times and come in eighty one kilo too.
Rachel:Mhmm. Where we just work ourselves up into a into a froth Yeah. Over something that's really just a it's just a throwaway fun episode for you to get a chance to have some shootout, have some running around. We've had some cerebral episodes, and they were like, we need to get some action.
Rachel:Mhmm.
Rachel:We need to we need to appease the people
Matt:some Sinclair smashes.
Rachel:We need to appease the people that are here for Babylon five's, action oriented plot.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Yeah. It's fine. So yeah, I think that's a good place to leave it. Reminder, we are taking March off. And if anything, the first two weeks of April, I don't know, watch this space.
Rachel:Like and subscribe.
Matt:Blue sky and for announcements?
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. Blue Sky is where I am currently socially media living. So,
Matt:rachel.be strangeandbeautiful.network.
Rachel:Yeah. On Blue Sky. I will maybe try to put a link in the show notes so that you can find me there. But yeah. I was also gonna put stuff up on the Patreon because if you don't wanna follow me on Blue Sky, Patreon is free.
Rachel:Anything that I post on there shows up for free. We just got another Patreon subscriber, so thank you to that person for signing up. We now have, like, 11. So oh my god. And then some of them actually pay.
Rachel:All of our tiers are a dollar. So, it that's because I can't promise I will provide you with any benefit. But if you want to feel good in your heart that you are helping us and supporting us, we do have a Patreon. I was gonna start doing some more stuff on there after we move. I've taken a mental health break from a lot of that stuff, but I'm gonna get back to it.
Rachel:So you can find us there. You can find us on Blue Sky. And I guess we live for the one.
Matt:We die for the one.
Rachel:Until next time, friends. Bye.
