Episode 4.2: Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?

This episode continues the tone and mood of the previous episode, right down to the opening narration and the lack of a complete story; Season 4 feels like it's made the transition from early-serialization, featuring a string of connected stories, to peak-serialization, like we see today, in which each episode contains a bunch of tiny snippets of story that only work in a larger context. A good way to see this difference is to try to sum the episode up: if you can tell us what it's about, it's a self-contained story that connects to the larger arc (ie, THE LONG TWILIGHT STRUGGLE is about the Centauri destruction of Narn and Londo's horror and complicity in it; COMES THE INQUISITOR is about a Vorlon agent testing Delenn and Sheridan; etc). If you instead can only tell us what happened, it's not a complete story and just a part of a longer one (ie, THE HOUR OF THE WOLF is the one where Londo goes to Centauri Prime and meets the Emperor, and where Lyta tries to look for Sheridan; WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MR. GARIBALDI? is the one where Sheridan talks to Lorien, and G'Kar gets captured, and Delenn rallies the rangers to attack Z'ha'dum). In the latter examples, everything that happens is interesting, but it doesn't come together as a story, with a beginning and a middle and an end.

Now: I do not say this as a critique. Peak-serialization is still great, and was the norm for some of my favorite TV shows of all time, such as Breaking Bad and Justified and The Wire. Each episode shows you snippets of ongoing story, and then it ends. This is, I suspect, the ideal form for serialized TV, and thus it is inevitable that B5 eventually settled into this rhythm. It's a good form, because while it isn't really telling a discrete story it's still pacing itself properly--there's no wasted time, and no treading water, and the emotional arc still rises and falls and ends on a "climactic" note. You could make an argument, for example, that THE HOUR OF THE WOLF is about the characters reeling and recovering from the loss of Sheridan and Garibaldi, and you're kind of correct, but in plot terms none of this is resolved--it literally ends on a cliffhanger--so it's still not a finished story. But it FEELS satisfying, because those emotional beats are all in the right place. B5, and its showrunner JMS, know how to tell a story, and even though we're no longer getting a complete story in a single episode (like we were back in season 1), we're still getting a good story well-told. Compare this to what I call late-serialization, on binge-native series like the Marvel Netflix shows, and you can see how truly terrible the pacing can get. Very few of those episode have a solid through-line--they don't know what they're about--and they have tons of extra padding that should have been trimmed to tighten up the storytelling. Amazon is better at pacing than Netflix is, but even they have problems because binge-native shows are still trying to figure out how to use the medium. And I do think they'll eventually figure it out--it took B5 four seasons, after all, to finally get their pacing where they wanted it, but they've figured it out and it's stellar now.

So the pacing and the tone and the feel of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MR. GARIBALDI? is perfect, but the little story snippets we're getting are all just...weird. It is still unbelievable to me that G'Kar would drop everything to go in search of Garibaldi, especially considering that the two things he's dropping are 1) the writing of his religious masterwork and 2) the liberation of his homeworld. And no, it's not enough to have him slide "he was my friend" into random conversations, because we've spent three full seasons with these people by now and we know that G'Kar and Garibaldi don't have anything resembling a close friendship. Londo always makes the same baseless claim about Garibaldi--that they are good, close friends--and I always thought he was just delusional, but now that G'Kar is doing it too I can only assume that maybe B5 just doesn't understand what friends are? Garibaldi and Franklin are friends: they hang out together, they chat, they support each other. They eat together in the Zocalo all the time, and we've even seem them get together in Garibaldi's quarters for private meals. When Franklin has a problem, Garibaldi shows up and tries to help him. I would 100% believe Franklin dropping everything to go look for Garibaldi, because Garibaldi literally saved his life, both physically and emotionally, and he owes him. The closest thing G'Kar has is that one time he was in prison and Garibaldi let him out early, but Garibaldi was as passionless as possible during that scene--it was not a favor for a friend or even a relief at finding a loophole to help a friend, it was just a thing that happened to an acquaintance. They are not friends, let alone close friends. I've discussed before B5's tendency to tell instead of show, and this is another prime example of that: we never see Garibaldi and G'Kar acting like friends, or interacting the way friends interact, but we're supposed to believe that it happens off screen and just take their word for it. Which is fine, I guess, until it makes G'Kar do something this dumb and out of character. From a narrative perspective, I think the whole point of the quest to find Garibaldi was just an excuse to get G'Kar out in the open where the Centauri could nab him, because nab him they do, and by the end of this episode G'Kar is right back where his ongoing story wants him to be: head to head with Londo, giving his life to save the Narn. I suspect he'll stay in that cell for several more episodes, the weird Garibaldi side-quest forgotten, and that's as it should be. That scene with him and Londo in the cell was delectable.

And then we've got Lorien. Lorien is played by Wayne Alexander, the same guy who played Sebastian in COMES THE INQUISITOR, and I raved about him then and I'll rave about him now. He's a fantastic actor. They just didn't give him anything interesting to say. He eventually introduces himself as the first of the first ones--as close to a Q figure as this series is likely to get--but his talk with Sheridan is mostly just really well-delivered babbling, with no ultimate purpose or direction. At the end of the episode he tells Sheridan that he's not embracing life, just fleeing death, and asks if he has anything to live for, and that's a good sentiment but why did it take us an hour to get there? The rest of his dialogue didn't build toward that moment, and actually kind of seemed like it was building in a totally different direction for a while there, which made the final statement feel jarring. And then the music swells and Sheridan shouts "Delenn!" and I don't know about you but this is the fourth or fifth time in the last three episodes that "Sheridan loves Delenn" has been used as a key reveal, and I think we've got it now, guys. Sheridan saying he wants to live for Delenn is the climax of the episode, but...we already knew it, and he's already admitted it, and the episode is structured as if Lorien is trying to lead him to that conclusion but he already arrived there weeks ago. Try to keep up, Lorien. I half-expected Sheridan to answer his "what do you have to live for?" question with "Well duh, I'm in love with Delenn and trying to save the universe, let's move this hayride." Sheridan is a driven person with LOTS to live for, and that's never been the issue. So what was the point of this whole sub-plot, then?

In an episode named after Garibaldi, it's kind of surprising that he only has one scene: trapped in a cell being ruthlessly interrogated by what appears to be the Psi-Corps. I honestly expected the guy in the doorway to be Bester, and maybe it was but they didn't want to pay the actor for two seconds of screentime so they gave some extra a helmet and will reveal his identity in a future episode. This is a great place to take the Garibaldi story: he was captured by the Shadows, and something happened but we don't know what, and then they dumped him somewhere and the Psi-Corps picked him up and are trying to figure out the same things we are.

Also Marcus was in this episode, but I don't know why. He showed up and tried to help G'Kar, but G'Kar is as annoyed by him as we are and sent him away. The end. Though I will give the man credit: this is the first time Marcus has EVER gotten a joke to land, and while I didn't laugh I was at least impressed enough to compliment Marcus on something, which I hope you understand the gravity of. G'Kar makes fun of his pike, and Marcus says "you're just jealous because you don't have one. It's a clear case of pike-al envy." And that works in part because it's subtle, and in part because G'Kar got antagonistic first, and in part because (I hope) Jason Carter is finally figuring out his character. I've liked him in other roles, so I desperately want to believe that I only hate him here because the characterization given to him by the script has been rough. Now that he's had a season to find his feet, is he going to be awesome?

And speaking of Rangers: Delenn remembers that the Rangers exist, and that she's in charge of them, so she gets them all together to attack Z'ha'dum. Does this mean we're finally going to see them do something? Is this military organization that's existed for a thousand years, created by Valen himself, finally going to participate in a military action? One can only hope.

So: this was an enjoyable episode without really being a good episode. Almost everything that happened in the two main plotlines felt kind of directionless, but there were some good reveals and some very important things happened. More vitally, the season as a whole continues to feel confident and smart--it knows where it's going and how to get there, and I'm excited to be along for the ride.