Episode 2.21: Comes the Inquisitor
95% of this episode is wonderful. Both plots were great, key people got to do key things, there were solid emotional beats and arcs, and it stands as both a great chapter in the longer saga and a great episode in its own right.
And then there’s that final scene, that undid so much of my goodwill I had to sit and think about the earlier stuff for a long time before I was able to write that first paragraph.
Let’s start with G’Kar. He’s on the outs now, with all his political power stripped but acting now as the leader of the B5 branch of the Narn resistance. He holds public meetings in the commons areas, calling for support and a unified front against the Centauri, and in secret he is collecting funds and buying arms to supply the resistance fighters on Homeworld. One of the Narn doesn’t trust him as their leader—which is ridiculous, since he’s always proven himself to be emminently capable of everything he’s ever done—but whatever, the B-plot needs a plot, and proving himself to them is the one they went with. And he does prove himself, because of course he does, but the real meat here are the opportunities to interact with other characters. He has a conversation with Garibaldi that makes them both look awesome, and he has a tense staredown with Vir in an elevator that makes the entire episode worth it, all by itself. G’Kar has always been one of my favorite characters, but who ever thought Vir would become one as well? He’s absolutely come to life this season, as one of the single more interesting and compelling characters in the entire show. Watching him freak out about G’Kar’s sudden and unexpected presence, and then try to avoid him, and then try to apologize to him, and then just break down in tears, is riveting.
And then there’s the A-plot, which follows Delenn trying to prove herself to the Vorlons, as represented by a human intermediary named Sebastian. This entire sequence is fantastic, especially Sebastian, who does such a stellar job in the role that I had to look him up to see what else he’d done, and he’s mostly just a TV character actor with bit parts a bunch of different shows. Boy howdy, was Hollywood ever underusing this guy. Thankfully, it looks like B5 brings him back a lot in the future, for a couple of recurring roles, so hooray for that.
His goal is to make sure the Delenn is the “right person,” and his secret goal is to discover the same of Sheridan, and it turns out that being the “right person” in this case means that they are willing to die in secret: they’re not in this for glory or praise, but for a genuine desire to help the galaxy. And that’s great, and it’s all well-written and well-acted, and it gets Sheridan and Delenn right up to the point where they almost confess a love for each other, but it saves that for another episode. And they pass the test, and he tells them they’re great, and then we’re done. The end.
Except for that stupid final scene.
So: out of nowhere, and contributing nothing to the episode, the characters, or the story, it turns out Sebastian is actually Jack the Ripper. I honestly don’t know what they were thinking with this. It doesn’t expand our understanding of anything that’s happened, or anything that was said, or how or why the Vorlons set it up, or anything. It’s SO WEIRD. I guess someone just really liked Jack the Ripper, and wanted to include him in an episode, and didn’t care how poorly it fit? I could understand it if this came out as a last-minute stinger that recontextualized the episode for us, or gave us sudden insight on the nature of the interrogation, or helped us understand who the Vorlons were, or something like that. But it doesn’t. It’s so completely out of the left field that I genuinely don’t know what to say about it. At least he performs it well?
Seriously: Wayne Alexander. I’m looking forward to seeing him again in future episodes.
And then there’s that final scene, that undid so much of my goodwill I had to sit and think about the earlier stuff for a long time before I was able to write that first paragraph.
Let’s start with G’Kar. He’s on the outs now, with all his political power stripped but acting now as the leader of the B5 branch of the Narn resistance. He holds public meetings in the commons areas, calling for support and a unified front against the Centauri, and in secret he is collecting funds and buying arms to supply the resistance fighters on Homeworld. One of the Narn doesn’t trust him as their leader—which is ridiculous, since he’s always proven himself to be emminently capable of everything he’s ever done—but whatever, the B-plot needs a plot, and proving himself to them is the one they went with. And he does prove himself, because of course he does, but the real meat here are the opportunities to interact with other characters. He has a conversation with Garibaldi that makes them both look awesome, and he has a tense staredown with Vir in an elevator that makes the entire episode worth it, all by itself. G’Kar has always been one of my favorite characters, but who ever thought Vir would become one as well? He’s absolutely come to life this season, as one of the single more interesting and compelling characters in the entire show. Watching him freak out about G’Kar’s sudden and unexpected presence, and then try to avoid him, and then try to apologize to him, and then just break down in tears, is riveting.
And then there’s the A-plot, which follows Delenn trying to prove herself to the Vorlons, as represented by a human intermediary named Sebastian. This entire sequence is fantastic, especially Sebastian, who does such a stellar job in the role that I had to look him up to see what else he’d done, and he’s mostly just a TV character actor with bit parts a bunch of different shows. Boy howdy, was Hollywood ever underusing this guy. Thankfully, it looks like B5 brings him back a lot in the future, for a couple of recurring roles, so hooray for that.
His goal is to make sure the Delenn is the “right person,” and his secret goal is to discover the same of Sheridan, and it turns out that being the “right person” in this case means that they are willing to die in secret: they’re not in this for glory or praise, but for a genuine desire to help the galaxy. And that’s great, and it’s all well-written and well-acted, and it gets Sheridan and Delenn right up to the point where they almost confess a love for each other, but it saves that for another episode. And they pass the test, and he tells them they’re great, and then we’re done. The end.
Except for that stupid final scene.
So: out of nowhere, and contributing nothing to the episode, the characters, or the story, it turns out Sebastian is actually Jack the Ripper. I honestly don’t know what they were thinking with this. It doesn’t expand our understanding of anything that’s happened, or anything that was said, or how or why the Vorlons set it up, or anything. It’s SO WEIRD. I guess someone just really liked Jack the Ripper, and wanted to include him in an episode, and didn’t care how poorly it fit? I could understand it if this came out as a last-minute stinger that recontextualized the episode for us, or gave us sudden insight on the nature of the interrogation, or helped us understand who the Vorlons were, or something like that. But it doesn’t. It’s so completely out of the left field that I genuinely don’t know what to say about it. At least he performs it well?
Seriously: Wayne Alexander. I’m looking forward to seeing him again in future episodes.
I think it requires people to be plugged more into the lore of Jack the Ripper than maybe the writer (JMS) assumed they were, and assume Jack was on a holy crusade to wipe out the decay and immorality. He was a zealot who would have failed his own tests, and the Vorlons picked him up to teach him the error of his ways and to have him redirect his zealotry.
ReplyDelete*IF* you can buy into that (and that's a lot to buy into and to assume), then it does recontextualize the Vorlons a bit. I think the point is, "Why would the Vorlons use someone so despicable as their agent / interrogator?"
Except he's not despicable, he's formerly despicable. He makes a point of saying that he's seen the error of his ways; the Vorlons have reformed him. At that point it doesn't matter who he used to be, and in fact it only makes the Vorlons look MORE moral, not less, because THEY FREAKING REFORMED JACK THE RIPPER. If his intent was to make the Vorlons look bad or untrustworthy, he missed that mark by a wide margin.
DeleteGonna have to disagree with you on this one, Dan. I loved the final scene, both when I originally watched it and in later re-watchings. Your after comment hits exactly where I love it. The Vorlons both reformed and used this guy's need for redemption. That's totally cool. I really do love this episode.
ReplyDeleteIt shows that the Vorlons have been interfering with Earth for a long time. What else have they done?
ReplyDeleteI totally love Vir and Stephen Furst. He was dying of kidney failure during the show, and a fan donated a kidney to him. It extended his life nearly 20 years; Furst died just a year or two ago.