Week three and I’m already falling behind. Not a good sign my friends. I’d blame the influx of bad weather headed our way, but mostly it was just losing track of time. This week’s rewatch should be a bit more streamlined – not my good doing, this episode just lent itself to it. Unlike our last two episodes, we didn’t face a lot of plot lines, and everything progressed in a near linear fashion this week.
And so….welcome to episode 2 of season 1, “Soul Hunter.” For an SF show, B5 like to invoke near mystical references a lot, and this episode is no different. But rather than spoil your appetite, let’s dig in.
We start the episode with the arrival of our new Doctor, Stephen Franklin. There’s a brief mention of our doctor from the pilot, Doctor Kyle, who is on his way to work with President Sinclair. But we no sooner get a glimpse of our new doctor when we have our first escalation in the action – Sinclair is called away for a disturbance at the jump gate. What I found interesting here is that they knew it was an unknown ship before it came through the gate – how? Seems to defy what little we can speculate about jump gates (not having any handy), but let’s let that slide. The ship is damaged and tumbling on a collision course for the station. Danger! Danger! (oh Will Robinson…you’re still a few episodes away, aren’t you?)
As we’ve been keeping track – Sinclair does the voice over for this episode.
All right, back to the action. We return from credits to see Sinclair suiting up – because again, it only makes sense to send out the captain of our station on a dangerous rescue mission. Sinclair justifies it in the context of a first contact situation, but we both know that’s lame. In a real first contact scenario, there would be some latitude given for rescuing a ship about to crash into you first. We see some obligatory failed attempts to grapple the alien ship before we have success, mostly because nothing should be easy or accomplished on the first try.
Delenn, who we’ve begun to get a little suspicious of thanks to all the hints, appears very curious about the alien and his unidentified ship. Of course, the moment she sees the alien in sickbay, she steals Sinclair’s sidearm and tries to kill it, scream “Shag-toth!” Only when she’s disarmed does she break into tears, begging them to kill the alien. It is a Soul Hunter, and Delenn begs that it be removed from the station before it is too late – before someone dies.
Later, in her quarters, Delenn apologizes for her behaviour. She explains that
Even as children, every Minbari is taught to be careful or the Soul Hunter will come in the night and steal their souls. They are immortal. No one knows who they are or where they came from but they can sense death. They are drawn to death like insects drawn to the light.
Cheery. Not every soul, of course, only those they consider to be of sufficient value. Delenn pleads with the captain that the Soul Hunter means everyone is in terrible danger.
Meanwhile, back in the slums…we have a friendly game of cups going on. “Find the red ball! Find the red ball!” the barker shouts. Only, we aren’t there – the Soul Hunter is clairvoyantly seeing this scene play out.
In a cutover we learn that word of the Soul Hunter has gotten out. The alien sectors of the station are deserted, a dozen ships already asking to leave immediately, ahead of schedule.. Not a good sign for a station whose soul (hah) purpose is to bring aliens together.
Back at the game of cups, we quickly see that our friendly game is more than a little crooked. Our crook is called out on his cheating ways and breaks into a run.
And then the Soul Hunter is awake and standing at the glass of the isobay, looking out at Doctor Franklin.
“Can you feel it?” he asks us.
<crook running down corridors, being chased by his mark.>
“Low, quick, muffled, terrified.”
<The sound of a beating heart.>
“It comes.”
<A knife catching our crook, stabbing him.>
“It comes. It comes.”
<Victim being brought to medlab>
<The sound of that beating heart!>
“Quick flash. The deep blue of pain.”
<Franklin trying to save the patient, shouting orders.>
“Dull, muffled. Slower now.”
<“I’m losing him now!”>
“Over your shoulder, it comes. The transition. A shadow. The long exhalation of the spirit. Can you see it, healer? Can you see it?”
At which point Franklin silences the intercom, the crook dies, and the Soul Hunter comments about the soul being lost now, soon to be a theme with this particular visitor. When Sinclair visits our guest, he tries to engage the Soul Hunter in conversation, but the alien simply spends the whole time chanting. At least, until Sinclair goads him, accusing him of being a thief, a stealer of souls. This is when we get our first insight the mystical workings of this universe.
Soul Hunters, it seems, are drawn to the moment when the soul leaves the body. They save them, preserving them – but not all of them. Only the special ones. We also have it confirmed that there is no loss of love between the Minbari and the Soul Hunters. The Soul Hunters tried to take the great Minbari leader Dughat during the war, but the Minbari formed a wall of flesh around their leader to save him (the audacity!).
And then Delenn arrives to confront the Soul Hunter and his collection. Knowing what we do about the Minbari and Soul Hunters, this goes about as well as you might expect. The Soul Hunter blames Delenn and the others for everything that went wrong in his life after he failed to capture Dukhat’s soul. That was when he stopped succeeding, stopped saving souls.
Our Soul Hunter pauses here to give us a bigger picture moment, recognizing Delenn from another title – Satai of the Grey Council. This is our second mention of the Grey Council, you may recall – the last time was in the pilot when Delenn whipped out the gravity field manipulator to threaten G’kar with turning his ribs to jelly if he ever mentioned it again. In an oft repeated refrain in these early days,
“What is one of the great leaders of the Minbari doing here playing ambassador?”
We can’t have an entire episode in medlab, so at our next opportunity the Soul Hunter escapes. We catch one glimpse of him with a floating orb, declaring, “At last, I know we have come for!” That can’t be good for someone on our regular cast, can it?
Speaking of regular cast, our intrepid crew figures out that if he’s hunting souls of the dying, they just need to figure out who’s going to die!
Is that all?
Thank goodness another Soul Hunter arrives at this point to unconfuse our plot a little. He informs Sinclair that he must be allowed to die, someone will die soon. Sinclair’s response? Sure! (um, did Sinclair not get the part where someone dies?) Of course, we ask who the new Soul Hunter is here to see – “You, commander.” Not at all ominous in any way.
New Soul Hunter is less grave than our first arrival. You can almost see this Soul Hunter sitting at a bar, knocking back sours between rounds, telling tales of the departed souls he’s saved. His brother (probably not genetically, but who knows), well, he’s disturbed. Someone is about to die, and it will be at his hands. Seems our first Soul Hunter buddy has figured out the best possible way to guarantee you get to a soul in time – be the one that frees it from the body.
And who has our shambling 3 eyed alien come to see? Satai Delenn, you’re next on the great Soul Train! Delenn is strapped down to a device that Doctor von Frankenstein would approve of. Sinclair, Garibaldi, and a team of security – with the input of the new Soul Hunter – scatter through the station trying to find where Delenn is being held captive.
We see the machine begin to sap at Delenn when Sinclair catches up with the Soul Hunter in a firefight.
Like the “hole in the mind” reference, the Soul Hunter is incredulous that Sinclair would be trying to save the Minbari.
“Why do you fight for her? Don’t you understand? She is Satai! Satai! I have seen her soul. They’re using you! They’re using you!”
Rather than interfere or attack, Sinclair releases the glowing globes of souls from the Soul Hunter’s satchel. They rise up and swarm the Soul Hunter, and we listen to first his confusion, then his anguish. Seems not all of his souls were happy to be captured after all. Sinclair takes this opportunity to spin the machine around, off of Delenn and onto the Soul Hunter, drawing his soul away into a glass orb.
Delenn wakes up groggy from her ordeal, and looking up at Sinclair, mumbles
“I knew you would come. We were right about you. We were right about you.”
Enigmatic? Sure. But I warned you at the start of this season, season one is all about laying down the groundwork. Not every episode is major plot arc – in fact, most are just about giving us clues and hints. This episode has been no exception. While we see the Soul Hunters once or twice more, including in a “movie”, their role here was mostly to just let us know we should keep an eye on Delenn, that there’s something more than we know going on (duh). That, and to be extra mystical in what is supposed to be a hard science fiction show.
Of course, the episode isn’t quite over yet. Back in his quarters, Sinclair does a keyword search of the Minbari language for “Satai.”
One reference: Honorific. Title applied to ruling body known as Grey Council.
And to hammer home the question of the episode, Sinclair asks – “Why would a ruling member be assigned ambassadorial duties?”
Isn’t that the question of the day?
We can’t end on a mystery, though, so instead we get another moment with the Soul Hunter as he is informed that Babylon5 is off limits to Soul Hunters.
“If I may ask, what happened to my brother’s collection?’
“Life is full of mysteries. Consider this one of them.”
Yes, it’s dialog like that that kept us coming back until the guns start blazing. Of course, to take us to credits we watch Delenn, crying, as she frees all of the trapped souls in the “collection.”
All in all, not a bad episode. Not spectacular, but not bad. This week we stuck to one plot thread, which certainly makes it easier on your commentator. This was intended as a revealing episode, but of course, we’re talking about revealing questions, not answers. It certainly made the recapping easier for yours truly 🙂
And now I’m off to prepare for the next influx of near polar centrifugal vortices in a near temperate climate zone – crazy snow coming our way.
Related articles
- The Babylon 5 Rewatch: s1e0, The Gathering (datanode.net)
- The Babylon 5 Rewatch: s1e1, Midnight on the Firing Line (datanode.net)
