Episode 3.22: Z'ha'dum

Look: I'm not any happier about me disliking this episode than you are. You think I WANTED to be disappointed by this finale? I wanted to love it! This is a good show, and I tell a lot of jokes about it but I like it. I like it a lot. But oy, this episode.

We begin with yet another string of black-and-white flashbacks, because "keeping you on top of serialized storytelling" was a relatively new technology in 1996, and this was the best they could do. I suppose it's just a less-refined version of the "Previously On" montage that has become commonplace, so I'm going to stop whining about it, but it does feel like a little much to give us a flashback to the final scene of the previous episode, which was already a flash forward from a previous episode. How many times have we watched Anna Sheridan walk into that room while Delenn drops a snow globe? I have lost count. Time is a flat circle. Somewhere, everywhere and always, Anna Sheridan is walking into that room and Delenn is dropping that snow globe. It is our new reality. We are already here.

After all that buildup, Anna's return turns out to be way less interesting than you expected, because she could not be more clearly evil if she had a monocle and a white cat to slowly stroke while she talks. There's maybe two sentences worth of interesting plot problems, as we watch Sheridan try to justify this sudden upheaval of his emotional life, and we think "wow, this will be fascinating," and then it's not because Anna is obviously evil and/or brainwashed and/or a Shadow in disguise, and we know that none of the "how will Sheridan deal with this new emotional landscape" questions will even require answers, let alone interesting answers, because the episode is going to end with Anna dead. End of story. Now: to be fair, the one shining awesomeness of this episode is, indeed, Sheridan's emotional turmoil. He hasn't watched any TV shows before, so he can't see the twists coming as early as we can, so he still thinks Anna might be for real, and watching him yell at Delenn for lying to him--even though he loves her--was hands down the best acting we've seen out of Bruce Boxleitner in...ever, basically. He does an incredible job--he managed to make me torn up and sad about a story I knew was going nowhere, and that's pretty frigging impressive. Give the man credit where it is due: he acted the hell out of this episode, and I loved it.

But I just didn't believe any of it. I mean, yes, it's his wife, but I'll tell you this right now: if your spouse disappeared for five years--even without the evil alien angle--you would not be in half of the emotional quandary Sheridan puts himself into when that spouse returned. "I decided to run away from you and live with someone else." Well okay, former loved one, you go do that. This shocks me, but I'm not in any hurry to have someone who is clearly a sociopath back in my life again. "Oh, but you don't understand: I was living with the sworn enemy you're currently at war with." Um, you're very bad at convincing people of things? Why did you think that would make it better? Kate seriously gives the worst possible list of reasons why Sheridan should trust the Shadows, and to his credit he eventually sees through it, but then they get to the planet and the Shadows are STILL trying to convince him! The only reason they didn't instantly sedate him and implant him with the mind-control chip is because they actually thought their little recruitment talk would work, despite the fact that is was the day-one discussion of a freshman philosophy class. If you want to impress me with Social Darwinism you need to jazz it way up, like the cuckoo clock speech from The Third Man, because presented straight, the way they did it here, just makes it sound more ridiculous than it already is. How poorly do they know Sheridan that they thought "turn your back on everything you believe in and be reborn in blood and fire" would work on him? Just use your fake wife puppet to bring him to you, then grab him and implant him and be done with it. Dumb villains make me angry.

Look: "war makes us stronger" is a real idea. We can see evidence of it all around us. And yes, it is believable that a galactic civilization would take "survival of the fittest" as its guiding light. But for the obviously, gleefully, hilariously evil Shadows to suddenly turn on a dime and think that they could persuade one of their highest profile enemies with "actually we're the good guys, come help us kill everybody," is laughable and out of character and so weird I don't even know how to parse it. Are we really supposed to take them seriously as an antagonist after this? Is this really what the entire season has been building toward?

The answer, I suspect, is no: the season has been building toward the big self sacrifice with the White Star and the nukes, and this nonsense conversation is just what they did to get Sheridan in place for the sacrifice to work. And believe me: I'm as surprised as you are by the fact that Sheridan's sacrifice does nothing for me. I mean, obviously he's not dead, so it's annoying we all have to pretend to be worried about it, but lots of shows pull this kind of cliffhanger all the time--why should I be so annoyed at this one?  Honestly, I think it's two things:
1) I'm comparing this finale to season 2's finale, which was just a million times better. "Let's redefine everything we know about everything" is a lot more interesting than "let's blow something up." The former leaves us with a ton of questions, all of which we know will have fascinating answers. The latter leaves us with only one question ("How did Sheridan survive?"), and the answer will certainly be interesting but it's not going to be fascinating, even with Kosh's force ghost involvement.
2) I started this season by saying that this show's greatest moments are payoffs, and throughout the season that has continued to hold true. This finale was not a payoff, just another battle in the Shadow War. The only plotline this paid off was the Kate thing, which a) was never compelling enough to require a payoff until b) she came back from the dead, which only happened so they could tell this specific story. So they started one loop and then closed it, and that's not a payoff that's just telling a story. And I know that this was planned since the beginning, because I know that the Anna Sheridan story was originally the Catherine Sakai story, and honestly all I can think now is: "you waited three seasons for this?" They seeded the long-lost love three years ago, and then carefully rebuilt the same story into Sheridan's background, all so someone could show up, twirl her mustache for a couple of scenes, and then get blown up? And yes, Sheridan's excellent acting and reacting were worth it, and wouldn't have had the impact without the backstory, but it's the same thing I said about WAR WITHOUT END: it just feels so much smaller than it could have been.

The episode ends, as Season 2 did, with a voiceover; Season 2 used Ivanova, and it was awesome, and Season 3 uses G'Kar, and it is awesome. That man could read a deli menu and I'd want to give him an Emmy for it. Does this mean that G'Kar is going to provide the opening credit narration for season 4, like Ivanova did for 3? If nothing else, it means that G'Kar is going to continue being wonderful, and that's all I really ask for in this show.

Final question: Did Garibaldi get abducted by the Shadows, or did he pull a Han Solo and just attach himself to their ship to hitch a ride? I suspect the latter, but the special effects made it look like he was inside of a membrane or something, so I'm not sure.

Other final question: Marcus didn't die, so I guess I have to put up with him for another season? Will the Rangers actually do anything this time, or will he continue to be the Catskills-comedian representative of an army so secret it never actually fights anyone? Time will tell....

Season Retrospective coming up next, and then we dive into Season 4.

Comments

  1. Sigh. I respect you, and your right to dislike what I enjoy. That said, I think you sell the shadows short as villains. Rewatch that seen where Morden asks Londo what he wants. That is what they are about: creating conflict by empowering the ambitious. Give someone who is watching their civilization decline a chance for, what did he call it, a rebirth of glory, a rennaisance of power? This is their faustian bargain. They find someone they can use, and empower that one to cause great upheaval. The beauty is, everything Londo asked for, he gets.

    But anyway, yes, there will be a lot more Gkar being awesome and wise, so at least we both enjoy that :)

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    1. You’re exactly right, which is why the Shadows in this episode didn’t ring true for me. If they’d gone to Sheridan and asked what he wanted, I bet they could have led him down a primrose path until he became the villain they needed him to be. But instead of asking what he wanted, or finding out secretly, they just made him a baldly villainous offer that no version of Sheridan ever would have said yes to. I wasn’t saying that the Shadows are bad villains, only that this episode breaks their characterization and makes them look stupid—which is especially painful, because they’ve always been so subtle and clever in the past.

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    2. That's a great point. I think part of the reason the scenes leading up to and on Zha'ha'dum come across as weak and weird is that the Shadows aren't quite certain what their goal is here.

      Previously, Morden was recruited, and they basically brain wiped Anna. Then Morden went on a recruiting mission. Straightforward, and largely successful: find useful pawns who are genre savy about wishes.

      Then Sheridan starts messing with their plans by getting various races to work together and they...want to recruit him? Want to kill him? It seems like they aren't sure.

      One moment it's "sorry about lobotomizing your wife, didn't know she was important, and, besides, we were sleepy when she woke us up. Friends?", then the next it's "You'll do what you're told!". No clear goal, hence bad execution. They should have decided whether they wanted to kill or corrupt him first.

      -HS

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    3. sorry, "not genre savy about wishes"

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  2. Kate Sheridan? Did I miss something? Her name is Anna.

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    1. I...genuinely have no idea where I got Kate. I don’t think anyone ever calls her Kate, or anything remotely like it. And yet I heard Kate every single time she was mentioned. I had to go back and rewatch some of the dialogue to convince myself imdb wasn’t lying to me about the name. But you’re totally right: her name is Anna. THAT IS WEIRD.

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    2. I'm a little surprised you didn't refer to her as "half-pint" throughout the entry since she's played by Melissa Gilbert.

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    3. Would you beleive that, after all my focus on guest stars, I didn’t recognize Melissa Gilbert at all? I’m almost more embarrassed about this than about hearing her name wrong.

      Speaking of which, I’ve gone through and changed all references of Kate to Anna. Thanks for the catch.

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