Episode 2.6: A Spider In The Web

Is it possible to write a Talia episode that’s not about a serial killer? Technically yes, but it’s only been done once: out of the seven or so episodes that give her a strong plotline, only MIND WAR didn’t focus on her being terrorized by a serial killer, and instead introduced Bester and the evil machinations of Psi-Corps. A SPIDER IN THE WEB has it both ways, by terrorizing her with both a serial killer and the evil machinations of Psi-Corps. So I guess the better question is: is it possible to write a Talia episode that's not about her being terrorized? Signs point to "no."

After my initial misgivings, once I saw what the episode was actually trying to do, I loved it. The serial killer is not just another off-the-shelf psychopath, he’s a dead pilot who’s been cybernetically reconstructed to serve as a zombie operative for a shady black ops organization (eventually revealed to be Bureau 13, which appears to be run by a Psi-Corps person, whether or not she’s currently a part of Psi-Corps). The guy’s name is Abel, and his human brain is basically in a coma, reliving the moment of his death over and over while his computer brain stalks and assassinates people. All of the details in this are awesome, like the scrolling image of the “San Diego Wasteland,” and Abel using a secret phrase to suborn a public computer terminal and report to his boss.

Talia’s repeated mind scans of Abel seem to jump start his human brain, giving him just enough autonomy to wake up and start fighting back against his programmed commands to kill—though he still ends up killing or almost killing everyone he comes into contact with. The first is his primary target, Joseph Takagi from DIE HARD, who is on the station to negotiate some kind of project with Mars that we can only assume includes Nakatomi Plaza. He is negotiating with, I kid you not, Adrienne Fracking Barbeau, who you may know from CANNIBAL WOMEN IN THE AVOCADO JUNGLE OF DEATH, but who you much more likely know from her decades as a Hollywood sex symbol, including ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and CANNONBALL RUN. Their meeting is of particular interest to Senator Lucille Bluth...or was it Senator Malory Archer? Either way, Jessica Walter gets about 30 seconds of screen time here, asking Sheridan to spy on the negotiations, but she puts more quirk and personality into the role than you may have thought was humanly possible. She has some kind of clear plastic wand that she uses to point at things, and when she says “you’ll be my ears and my eyes on the station" it is unaccountably bizarre in the best possible way. I hope we see a lot more of her—she’s way more interesting than the Senator who used to promise help to Sinclair all the time and then never actually helped him with anything.

So anyway: there’s a cyborg serial killer on the station trying to either liberate Mars from Earth oppression or destroy the Free Mars movement and further Earth oppression, and this should be easy to deal with because I’ve spent the last 20-something episodes talking about what a good investigator Garibaldi is. Remember when I used to talk about that? Well forget all of it, because he’s terrible now. He’s so bad at investigating things that the episode goes out of its way to underline it, showing him screw up a google search so badly he ends up malfunctioning the door to Sheridan’s quarters. Ha ha, stupid chief security officer! But he doesn’t have time to be good at his job, see, because he’s too busy creeping on Talia. She witnessed the first murder, so they think the killer might come for her to close the loose end, and who should be assigned as her security escort but Garibaldi. She gives him the clearest look of “oh this creep again” in the history of television, and true to form he starts hitting on her literally while she is in tears from the murder of her surrogate father, but because this is a bizarre universe in which the writers both understand and painfully misunderstand the realities of sexual harassment, she changes her mind almost immediately and they start to hit it off.

I assume that the writers made Garibaldi bad at his job because they wanted to include this plotline and these flirty conversations, but they also wanted to show someone actually, you know, tracking down the killer we’re supposed to be tracking, and they didn’t want both of those threads to use the same actor. And since, let’s see...Boxleitner’s just sitting around doing crosswords in his trailer, so lets have him do the investigation. That doesn’t make a ton of sense, because he has no history of security and none of the skills required to crack open a secret conspiracy but...hmm...oh, I know, we can make him a specialist in secret conspiracies! The line he uses is that he collects them, like stamps, which seems like the kind of thing that would paint a target on your forehead pretty quickly, but he is apparently able to collect vast amounts of allegedly secret data, in his spare time, without interfering with his actual job, and without drawing any attention or raising any eyebrows. Nice work if you can get it. So Sheridan cracks the case, but not before Abel tricks Adrienne into summoning Talia to her quarters. Garibaldi, pretending that he remembers how to be a security officer, gets a whole team of space cops to escort Talia down there and then--get this--sends Talia into the room without checking it out first, or even looking inside, or even wondering why Adrienne isn't there to greet her. Abel grabs her and they scream at each other for a while, and they don't actually show Garibaldi during this time but I like to imagine he and his team are standing in the corridor whistling while muffled thumps and shouts reverberate through the wall behind them. When Sheridan finally calls and tells them the killer's inside the room, they pull out their guns and burst through and nope, that doesn't work either. Even with the element of surprise and outnumbering him four to one, the only thing they manage to accomplish is a GREASE reunion: Adrienne played Rizzo on Broadway, and one of the security guys played Kenickie in the movie. But that's not important right now: we're watching Garibaldi not know how to shoot at or talk down a perp. Thankfully, Sheridan shows up and does both, so problem solved. I used to complain when Sinclair would get all of Garibaldi's hero moments, but you know what? Sheridan earned this one, and Garibaldi bungled things every step of the way, so I'll allow it.

Garibaldi nonsense aside, this was a great episode. It took what I thought was a tired premise and turned it into a cool SF conspiracy with a tragic villain and an evil mastermind. It paid off several episodes of Talia/Ivanova interaction by having Ivanova actually vouch for Talia's character--which is a huge deal, given how much she hates Psi-Corps--and then it pays that off by having Talia lie straight to Sheridan's face by refusing to identify the creepy Psi-Corps lady in the back of all of Abel's nightmares. There are two major plot threads running through the series right now--the growing war with the Shadows, and the civil war involving Earth, Mars, and Psi-Corps--and this was a fantastic addition to the Psi-Corps half of the story. And right on the heels of THE LONG DARK? Back in Season 1 we'd have to wait four or five episodes at least between high points, but now we're getting them right on top of each other. No wonder people talk about how good the show gets.

Last thing: Adrienne Barbeau's character is named Amanda Carter, and Taro points out that her great grandfather John was the first man on Mars. Thank you, Babylon 5, for giving me a John Carter reference. I love you too.