Welcome back for another weekly recap of Babylon 5! Luckily, once again we have an episode with only one main plot line and one minor plot line, making the recap easier, and more importantly, quicker for me to type. In the interest of continuing to streamline, I’ll leave out some of the crunchy bits and just deliver to you the smooth relevant parts. Straczynski has been quoted as saying this was one of his least favorite episodes, but we shouldn’t let the author and creator cloud our judgement. Right? Right!
Watching this episode with the rose colored glasses of knowing what is to come, there are a lot of cues we pick up on that I think have deeper meaning than they do if this is your first time watching it. Unfortunately, without those glasses its hard to see what Straczynski was going for and you’re left with the story of a man in a suit. But I digress.
Our episode begins with a reporter from ISN, Mary Ann Cramer, hounding Garibaldi so she can interview Sinclair for ISN. When Garibaldi informs her that the commander has taken a fighter out to investigate a damaged ship, she asks the most reasonable question we’ve wanted to hear – “Isn’t that kind of job usually delegated?” Garibaldi blows off the question, saying Sinclair’s a hands-on kind of guy, but those of us that have been thinking the same thing get excited because a seed has finally been sowed here.
Of course, Cramer thinks Sinclair is avoiding her, and we later learn that he is, so that’s pretty justified. But her interests in the station are all legitimate – it is, after all, the second anniversary of the station going live (two years?? Already??).
Meanwhile, our good Doctor Franklin is working in medlab when his old college mentor, Vance Hendricks, arrives. Hendricks gives a song and dance about offering Franklin a chance for adventure, and acting as mysterious as he can about the whole thing. Down in the loading dock, of course, we watch a customs officer attempt to investigate some of the Hendricks’ incoming artifacts get murdered with a taser.
(Sinclair again does the voice over for this episode’s credits.)
Sinclair, Garibaldi, and the Doctor are in customs, investigating the death. Garibaldi is suspicious, but Franklin scoffs, accusing Garibaldi of trying to play doctor. The man died of a heart attack, he declares, and dismisses the security chief. When the doctor returns to medlab, Vance is waiting for him with his new friend, Nelson, who we know as the man that killed the inspector before the credits.
Vance explains that they found something on Ikarra 7, something they want Franklin to look back. As they open the cases of artifacts, we have a cut-scene where back in CnC, an energy spike is detected, that foreboding specter that Something Bad is in the cases. Vance continues on that on the dead world of Ikarra 7 they found a vault buried underground (never a good sign) where they found these artifacts, proof that there was once a spacefaring civilization on the planet thousands of years ago. He urges Franklin to put one of the devices in the medical scanner – which he does – and reveals that they are in fact biotech.
Biotech, that one technology that humanity hasn’t cracked yet. The ability to make living ships that can survive the vacuum of space. Vorlons have it, and they think the Minbari do, and now it might be in their grasp. Imagine!
Its unclear to me if this is in another room or just later in the day, but we watch Nelson as he continues to unpack the artifacts. He notices one that is slightly box shaped is ajar and reaches out to touch it. As he does so, he is flung across the room by arcs of lightning. When next we see Nelson, helping in the background, he looks constipated and one of his arms is discolored. Well, that can’t be a healthy sign!
Reminding us they’re out there, Garibaldi and Sinclair get a little screen time. Namely a reminder that Garibaldi is still not convinced the death of the customs inspector is an accident, and Sinclair is still trying to avoid the reporter from the ISN. This week’s humor allotment is used by Sinclair, informing us that
“The last time I gave an interview they told me just to relax and say what I really felt – ten minutes after the broadcast I got transferred to an outpost so far off the star maps you couldn’t find it with a hunting dog and a Ouija board.”
Back in the lab, Franklin – who is still working on figuring out how the biotech works – admits that he doesn’t understand why someone of Vance’s caliber is scavenging technology from dead worlds instead of making his own discoveries. And then to sell that to a corporation? Franklin is aghast. Vance offers a retort that boils down to the old, “I go where the money is, and the corporations have the money,” which seems kind of trite, although I recognize that this is all part of the subtext Straczynski is aiming for (and largely fails, though not necessarily through any fault of his own). Franklin continues to preach that this is just a short cut, implying it will end badly.
Which it does, of course, because next we watch as Nelson removes what looks like a small brain from a box. Said brain sprouts legs, passes some arcs of electricity between them, and then is attached by Nelson to his own chest and turns him green. I’m not sure that’s how biology works, but I also think there could have been tool using saurians, so I’m not your best reference guide.
Franklin returns to the medlab later, only the lights don’t work. Oh yeah, and there’s a Nelson shaped figure that shouts “Protect!” and raises his left arm, which has been converted into an energy weapon. Oh, robocop would have been so proud! And down goes the doctor with a small shot to the chest.
Of course, our buddy Vance Hendricks claims that he didn’t know that the artifacts had bypassed quarantine in customs, oh dismay! Oh, but yeah, he did know that the tech would graft itself onto people, he just didn’t know Nelson would be that person.
Nelson/Ikarran, now on a little rampage, attacks some men in Grey 13, yells “Protect!” again, and reduces them to ashy shadows on the wall. That would be, the viewer notes, a little more powerful than the shot that hit Franklin, which is confirmed in the course of events by Ivanova and her team – the shots are getting stronger with each use. Cramer appears in the CnC, pressing Sinclair for more information even as he’s trying to marshall his people around a plan, and Ivanova warns her:
“Don’t. You’re too young to experience that much pain.”
Oh, our stoic Russian! On the other side of the station, Garibaldi is approaching the Nelson/Ikarran, a giant armored thing with a blaster for an arm, and we learn that its impervious to puny human weapons. What are we to do before it can destroy the station?
Leave it to Doctor Franklin to pull us out of this. Among the various artifacts he uncovers the equivalent of a database detailing the history of the objects, their use, etc. Frankly, I doubt anyone would record “we’re a bunch of a religious zealots who built this thing to prove our superiority” – my experience is that such groups tend to pass around the kool-aid a little more than that – but there we are. The Ikarrans, we learn, were invaded over a dozen times by outside forces. They made the giant biological weapons to protect them, and programmed them only to stop for a pure Ikarran.
Its the use of that word “pure” that is latched on to at this point in the show, as we briefly examine how do you define a “pure” member of any species? Somehow, though, this all inspires Sinclair, who tracks down the Ikarran and goads him, pointing out that the Ikarrans were destroyed by their own creation because none of them were perfect. It seems like an odd form of psychological warfare that shouldn’t stand a chance, and yet ultimately we listen as Sinclair forces the Ikarran to look back in host body’s memories at what became of Ikarra.
The Ikarran falls to his knees, pleading for the Great Maker to
“…forgive us this madness, forgive us!”
He then removes the bug from his chest and crushes it, killing himself and magically leaving a naked Nelson on the floor. Actually, we only see the top half, so I guess that’s a naked half Nelson. Hah!
While Nelson is recovering, Franklin confronts his old friend, Vance. He knows that Nelson was responsible for killing the customs inspector and that Vance was in on it the whole time. They argue, and we learn a few more background things. We’d already heard that Interplanetary Expeditions was responsible for the trip, and now we learn that they are just a shell company for biotech research. Vance was to sell the tech he found to them, his sponsors, but wanted to try and raise his stakes – and his profits – by solving some of the mysteries before he delivered it to them.
Vance then turns the tables and offers Franklin even more money to help him out. And you know what? We see what looks like Franklin seriously considering it and even regretting the fact that he’s already called security who – surprise – show up now to collect Vance.
…but the episode isn’t over. Although our main plot line (the so called “infestation”) is over, we still have a few loose threads to close up. First, we watch Garibaldi confront Sinclair about his risky behavior. Three times, by Garibaldi’s count, the commander has put himself in danger in the last year. Garibaldi compares the actions to a returning soldier unsure of his place in the world, and Sinclair admits he might have a problem, but only in vague terms.
Franklin and Ivanova meet at the bar (though we didn’t get to see Londo this episode, at least the bar is eternal), where they talk about how similar humans could become to the Ikarrans. Franklin is of course talking about the pro-Earth movement back home, a desire to see less aliens in human space. He no sooner utters a comment about the bioweapon being a preview of things to come when Earth Forces show up, at the bar, to confiscate the weapon from him for “further research.”
Of course, the episode doesn’t end there, because that’s what we’re expecting. Instead, we end with a message. Cramer finally gets her interview with Sinclair, asking him
Mary Ann Cramer: Is it worth it? Should we just pull back? Forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems, at home.
Sinclair: No. We have to stay here. And there’s a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you’ll get ten different answers, but there’s one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won’t just take us. It’ll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes…[and] all of this…all of this…was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.
And so the episode ends. The only reward I really draw from this episode is something I’ve been saying all along – why is Sinclair taking all these risks? Shouldn’t someone else be going out there? Otherwise, its just a man in a suit (trope) action episode. Not unsatisfying, but not really moving us forward on our arc.
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I always felt that this episode did a lot to support the forward plot lines – explained bio-based technology (Shadow/Vorlon-tech) and explained Sinclair’s motivations towards just about everything he’s done or will-do (or is it “will-done?”). He’s passionate about one thing – ensuring meaning through action. There’s so much to be said about this both now and in future episode commentary! Finding something worth dying for is easy. Find something worth living for. Throw every gun at it until all you have left to throw is yourself, then set thrusters to max burn and set a collision course. Because if you don’t, who will? Because what makes us human is that we care, and because we care, we never stop trying.
Honestly, that was my original take too. But when I went through some of the JMS commentary in prep for this episode, it turned out his intent was to talk more to the fallacy of having a “pure” person of any kind. Deepness dwells within these walls.
But yeah, really, its a great intro to the concept that we can have people and biological machines integrated, leading into the events of the next few seasons. If memory serves, the next two episodes to be reviewed will continue to add to that series foundation, but then I risk breaking the spoilers rule 🙂