Episode 2.8: A Race Through Dark Places

This one was pretty good. It would have been a standout in season 1, but the competition is so fierce now in season 2 that it only registers in the middle range. That’s still a very good place to be though, and more Bester is always awesome.

Plus it gives us something I honestly didn’t think we’d ever see: Talia not only happy, but in a position of power. She’s always portrayed as so dour, and so threatened, and in such severe clothing, that it’s honestly starting to look like a fetish thing—and to be fair, we do get a lot of that in this episode—but by the end she’s finally stood up for herself, maybe for the first time ever, and it’s kind of amazing to watch. When she turns on Bester, and helps the underground telepaths escape, she shows a moment of genuine happiness, and I’m honestly kind of surprised how much I enjoyed it—not in a creepy “you should smile more” kind of way, but simply because Talia is rarely ever happy, and rarely ever does things for herself, and even when the powerful men threatening her get defeated she’s rarely ever the one to do it. And then at the end, when she goes to Ivanova’s quarters with a bottle of wine and a great big smile, ready to make a personal connection and have friends and live a real life, that was exactly the ending the episode needed. It was such a milestone in Talia’s life. Get it, girl!

Of course, it’s not the end of her troubles. This episode aired after SPIDER IN THE WEB, though it was written and filmed first, which means that the original intent was to give her a moment of triumph and happiness here only to take it away in the very next episode, dropping her straight back into Powerful Creepy Man land. That doesn’t bode well for future episodes, either. And while we’re talking about Powerful Creepy Man land, she takes a pretty amazing trip there in this episode as well, most notably when Bester calls her on the video phone and she’s in a silk nightie. It’s such a bizarre scene, too: her screen beeps, she answers it, sees that it’s Bester, and then turns away from him with a a scowl to cover herself up—giving the camera and the audience a clear look at the goods in the process. Why did she answer the phone like that in the first place, if she was standing there in a nightie? Who did she think it was going to be? Or does she just always answer the phone in lingerie and then always gets angry about it? I can understand the “oh look at this violation” vibe that the writer and/or director was trying to get across there, and Bester’s dialogue really hits it home, but it only served to emphasize how much of Talia’s entire purpose as a character is to demonstrate violation. “Now Bester’s going to give her a creepy phone call, filled with insinuation, and use his authority over her to demand social favors, but we’ll amp it up and let him see her in her underwear, too. Ooh, and then we can let the audience see her in her underwear!” To be honest, it might just be that whoever directed this episode has a thing for silk nighties, since the final scene puts Ivanova in one as well.

Not to make this entire thing a rant about Talia, but: it’s telling that even her awakening into self-actualization comes as a result of being kidnapped. The telepath underground steals her away (and Bester, appropriately horrible, literally could not care less), and then one by one they tell her about all the horrible things Psi-Corps has done to them and to their families. And this is great stuff, and I loved it, but how hard would it have been to have Talia make the choice to go down there and meet them, of her own free will? Why does everything she does have to result from men forcing her? It got so bad that I initially assumed even her hero moment was a product of brainwashing: way back in THE QUALITY OF MERCY, when they introduced the concept of psychically implanted personalities, I predicted that someone on the station would eventually turn out to be a secret Psi-Corps sleeper agent, and then took the further step of predicting that it would be Talia. When the underground is trying to resist Bester, and then all of a sudden she betrays them and the two Psi-Corps agents murder everyone, I absolutely thought that my prediction had been correct, and that Bester had just activated her Mind-Slave protocol in order to save himself and kill all the renegades. I was right that the scene was too weird to be real, but wrong in the details: it turns out they were just implanting an illusion in Bester’s mind, and it mostly worked (though he obviously suspected something at the end).

But oh, that moment of victory. I complain about this show's treatment of Talia pretty much every time she appears, and I don't know if the endless episodes of menaced sadness are worth that one moment of heroism, but I frigging cheered out loud. Good for you, Talia.

The episode is filled with other neat character moments as well. Dr. Franklin turning out to be the mastermind of the telepath underground was unexpected but perfect. Sheridan throwing increasingly furious rants about being forced to pay rent on his own station was good character stuff AND good setting development. Bester was beautifully sociopathic in virtually every word and gesture, and came across as both psychically and socially powerful.

And can we talk about Delenn? It didn't really go anywhere, but this is the kind of stuff from Delenn we should have been seeing five episodes ago: "I became human to form a bridge between our cultures, so let's maybe start forming a bridge between our cultures." Her knowledge of basic human customs seems woefully lacking, so she obviously hasn't spent the last five episodes studying us, and her claim that Minbari culture loves laughter seems so untrue to the way they've been presented that it's either a retcon or a straight up lie, but you know what? I'm going to overlook all of that. This is the first good Delenn stuff since Chrysalis, and I loved it.

Maybe I just loved this episode because it showed two of the female leads finally taking control of their lives for the first time all season--or all series, in Talia's case. We got to see some really strong character work that's been way too long in coming. I genuinely don't know if some of the plot details will turn out to be important in the future: will we see the telepath underground again, now that they're leaving the station? Will the fact that telepaths can combine their power through skin-on-skin contact come back to help or hurt us? Will the Earth Force goal of monetizing every last inch of the station cause more problems? I have no idea, and right now I kind of don't care. Delenn is being proactive again, and Talia's decided she's sick of being a victim all the time, and that's all this episode needed to show me to win my praise. Plot beats aside, as long as those two character beats continue on, I'll be a very happy viewer.

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