Episode 2.20: The Long, Twilight Struggle

Another great episode, though one that perhaps presaged the modern problem that plagues all serialized TV: when you’re only telling a part of a longer story, it’s easy to miss the mark on giving each episode a proper beginning, middle, and end. This episode certainly has a climax, but it doesn’t really have a conclusion, and that’s mostly because there’s no emotional through-line for any one character; you can’t chart a traditional arc for anyone involved, and that leaves the ending feeling a little more unsatisfying than I expected. To be fair, though, part of that is almost certainly intentional: they don’t come right out and say it, but there’s a massive “To Be Continued...” hanging off the end of this story, and I suspect this is really just the first act of a three-parter designed to close off the season.

One of the main reasons for the lack of character focus is the heavy reliance on CGI. I complained earlier in the season about how even though there was a war on we never got to actually see it, and this episode showed exactly why: the two or three extended space battles in this episode were soooo booooring, because they were basically just long sequences in which nobody we knew or cared about was on the screen. I’m very weird about fight scenes anyway: a fight has to be really interesting and character-focused (or really impressive physically) to hold my attention. “Oh look it’s a fight scene” is usually my signal to go refill my drink, or to pull out my phone. This is not a comment on the quality of their CGI—it’s actually getting pretty good—just on the nature of the fight itself, and on the choreography and editing. A space battle in, say Star Wars, or Battlestar Galactica, works because the special effects shots are intercut with faces that we know and love. It’s not just a blip flying around shooting lasers at other blips, it’s Luke or it’s Starbuck or it’s Poe Dameron. They have hopes and plans, and the fight is an expression of who they are. This was just blips shooting lasers at blips. And yes the things that were happening were tragic, but the only time we really felt that tragedy was when Centauri was bombing the Narn homeworld and the camera zoomed in on a battleship window to show Londo staring in stunned horror at the events he had helped put into motion. That was the moment where Londo broke, completely and utterly, and indeed when we see him in the council chambers later he’s a different man, with his compassion and all his other emotions locked away behind a mask of resigned tyranny. We needed that face in that battle to make the scene hit home, and it did so beautifully. The rest of the battle stuff was meh.

And while we’re talking about the bad parts of the episode: Draal is just such a lame character, and a freakish tonal abnormality in what should have been a dramatic episode. Cutting back and forth between the genocidal blitz on the Narn homeworld and the goofy shtick of Draal was so weird. I was excited, at first, to see the Great Machine making another appearance on the show, but by the end of the episode I was more than ready for it (and him) to go back to sleep again. And honestly most of it wasn’t outright jokes—it wasn’t a vaudeville act of anything—it was just his performance. It’s like they told him to play the role as if he were the Ghost of Christmas Present. The one and only saving grace of the entire plotline was the mention of Zathras at the end, and even that was done in the hammiest way the actor could possibly have done it. So it was still an unneccesary joke, but I’m just excited to hear about Zathras again.

Whatever. On to the good stuff. The Narn/Centauri war comes to a close, thanks primarily to the underhandedness of the Centauri: the Narn find a key supply depot and plan to hit it, but the Centauri find out that they’re planning to hit it and use the opportunity to attack the Narn homeworld directly. This is also a good time to mention that the Narn homeworld is apparently called Homeworld, as a proper noun, which I actually kind of like but sounded odd every time they said it. Anyway: Lord Refa, leaning way into his role as a smarmy political sociopath, plans the whole attack and essentially bullies Londo into being a part of it, mostly because they need his “contacts” to help defend the supply depot while the main fleet is obliterating Homeworld. Nobody says it directly, but my read on Londo is that he knows his “contacts” are the only thing keeping him in the good graces of a clearly evil puppetmaster, so he goes along with the plan more out of self-preservation than anything else. Londo’s kind of trapped between two different devils, and he’s sold his soul to both of them, ultimately forcing him to watch his own people commit an atrocious war crime, which (as I described earlier) seems to completely break his spirit. The Narn are conquered, they surrender completely, and Londo returns to the B5 council to present a “this is how it’s going to be now” speech that is practically a checklist of evil tyranny. And he delivers said list without a single hint of remorse or pity. I assume Londo’s journey isn’t over yet, but at the very least his journey to the Dark Side is complete.

One thing I don't understand is why Sheridan and the rest of the council don't fight back a little harder against Londo in this scene. The Centauri are not just conquerors, they are literal war criminals. This isn't a case of them winning the war in a shady but acceptable way: they used banned weapons, breaking treaties they themselves agreed to in the process. Earth and the council and everybody else would be completely within their rights to refuse to recognize the Centauri's control over the Narn; hell, we do it on Earth all the time. Go read up on China and Taiwan. And yet, in the face of clear war crimes and a ridiculous list of humanitarian crimes ("when a Narn kills a Centauri on an occupied planet, we will kill 500 Narn in retribution"), the council just rolls over and agrees to everything. Sheridan stands up to exactly one of Londo's demands, but Londo refuses and Sheridan backs down. And yes, he gives his big speech about offering sanctuary to G'Kar, but he could have done so much more, and I don't understand why he didn't.

What we do get in this scene, courtesy of the best character on the show, is a stirring, haunting, perfect speech from G'Kar. Andreas Katsulas kills the role every time he's on screen, but this was his highlight; this would be his Emmy reel if there was any justice for SF shows. "There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom." It's really only five or six sentences--it's a very short speech, all things considered--but G'Kar delivers it so well. It's astonishing.

And then at the end we get Garibaldi and Delenn introducing Sheridan to the Rangers, and I suppose that's kind of cool except a) we've never really seen the Rangers do more than a couple of minor things anyway, and b) now it's just Sheridan holding all the reins of all the power. I was excited for Garibaldi to have some secrets and oversee some awesomeness, but the whole season has gone by without any Ranger-related awesomeness, and now Sheridan's in charge, and okay. And I hate trying to second guess this show's outline all the time, but it's hard to deny that fully half of this episode was focused on getting Sheridan up to speed on things that were originally intended for Sinclair to be doing. I'd almost speculate that this episode was originally intended as the first introduction of the Rangers (since they haven't really done anything yet anyway), and the whole Sinclair/Garibaldi thing was thrown into an early Season 2 episode as a quick fix to mollify sad fans who missed Sinclair and wanted assurance that he was still doing something important. It doesn't help that this episode ends with a supposed-to-be-rousing speech from Sheridan mere minutes after the genuinely-rousing speech from G'Kar, and it ends up feeling both redundant and less impressive.

So yeah. This is clearly an important episode, and a lot of big important things happen, but it only half worked for me. The Narn/Centauri stuff was great, and G'Kar and Londo both give powerful performances. The rest of it was kind of lackluster, and mostly just moved pieces into place, and that's not what I want a climax to be doing. Are they finally in place now? Can we get on with the Shadow War that's been teased for over a year already?

"Though it take a thousand years, we will be free."

You tell 'em, G'Kar.