“Conflicts of Interest”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by David J. Eagle
Season 4, Episode 12
Production episode 412
Original air date: May 5, 1997
It was the dawn of the third age… Garibaldi’s meeting with a client is interrupted by another client. Garibaldi excuses the former and talks to the latter, a man named Ben, who is apparently at the end of his rope with frustration over how long it’s taking Garibaldi to find his daughter. When Ben finishes ranting and raving, Garibaldi tells him to turn around, at which point he sees his daughter. As an added bonus, Garibaldi also gives the financially strapped Ben a reduced fee, one that barely covers his expenses, saying that seeing this reunion was payment enough.
We see Wade watching this tableau, and he and a confederate decide that it’s about time Garibaldi got his first assignment, to see if he can handle this gig. If he can’t, well, he’s expendable…
Sheridan summons Allan to his office. Despite his resignation, Garibaldi has yet to turn in his identicard, his link, or his weapon, all of which is required by station regulations. Allan hasn’t forced the issue because he assumes the chief is coming back to work eventually, but Sheridan is less sanguine about that, and also doesn’t like the company Garibaldi is keeping.
Franklin and Cole have returned from Mars. While Cole is reporting to Sheridan, Franklin goes to the War Room to check out its conversion to a studio for the Voice of the Resistance. Ivanova says they’ve got everything they need but a power source. The station’s power can transmit to this sector, but to go properly interstellar they need a huge power source. Franklin reminds her of the planet they’re orbiting, which includes a Great Machine that is hugely powerful, and which they’ve used to transmit big-ass messages, and which Ivanova herself has already been plugged into once. Ivanova, rather than admit that she brain-farted and totally forgot about Epsilon III, instead suggests Epsilon III as if Franklin never said anything. Franklin, who values his life, agrees that it’s a brilliant idea and he wishes he thought of it.
Allan asks Garibaldi for his stuff back. Garibaldi has no problem handing over the identicard—he’s already got a new one that reflects his status as a civilian—and the link—which always annoyed him, especially the way it ripped out the hairs on the back of his hand—but he refuses to turn over his PPG. Allan insists, especially since he is licensed to get one of his own, but that one is military issue—as is his backup weapon, which Allan also insists on taking. Garibaldi is incredibly snotty to Allan on the subject, especially when Allan says he couldn’t refuse the order. Garibaldi counters Allan could too have refused it, but Allan says then Sheridan just would’ve sent someone else. Garibaldi replies that at least then he wouldn’t have had to face Allan doing it, which is a cheap shot.
Later, Garibaldi is eating dinner and watching the “Duck Amuck” episode of Looney Tunes when Wade stops by with a job for him—one that wouldn’t be appropriate for regular working hours. He wants to sneak someone onto the station without any record of his arrival or departure to pick up a sensitive package—which will involve pulling the wool over the eyes of his former staff. Garibaldi, still pissed at Allan for taking his stuff, agrees.
Ivanova arrives on Epsilon III and is shocked to be greeted by Zathras. It turns out that, even though he looks, sounds, and talks the same as the Zathras she met previously, it isn’t the same one—as he went back in time with Sinclair/Valen. Turns out it’s his brother, Zathras. There are ten Zathrases (Zathri?)—well, nine now—and he offers, after many many digressions, including the rather disturbing revelation that he eats bugs, to hook Ivanova up.
Sheridan meets with Mollari and G’Kar. The latter is extremely reluctant to be in the same room as the former, but the captain insists. He tells them about the strikes along the borders of the non-aligned worlds, and he wants the Rangers to patrol those areas and provide humanitarian aid. It’ll be a much easier sell if the Narn and Centauri agree to the same support. They’re both reluctant, as it will be seen as a power play on Sheridan’s part, plus the Narn and Centauri don’t need the help. But Sheridan says it will make a huge symbolic difference.
Wade and Garibaldi sneak the person on board, using a second identicard that Garibaldi has and didn’t give to Allan. However, it’s not Garibaldi’s would-be client, rather it’s his wife, as he himself was unable to make the trip. To Garibaldi’s abject shock, the wife in question is his old flame Lise, who is introduced by Wade as Lise Hampton-Edgars.
They go to Garibaldi’s quarters to catch up. Lise divorced Franz after she found out he was cheating, but because judges always favor Earth natives like him over Mars natives like her, he got everything, including sole custody of their child, whom she anticipates she’ll never see again. She married her new husband, Bill, not long after.
Garibaldi is appalled that she didn’t come to him when her marriage blew up, but she said he seemed happy on B5, happier than she’d ever seen him, and she didn’t want to mess that up for him with her miserable circumstances. Then Garibaldi puts two and two together, and realizes that husband Bill must be William Edgars, one of the richest people on Mars, at which point Garibaldi realizes she traded up.
Allan gets a report on security, which includes an unauthorized entry made by “Security Chief Michael Garibaldi.” Allan is pissed and has the computer cut off any access to Garibaldi the security chief.
Garibaldi, Wade, and Lise meet with the contact in downbelow, a guy named Mark. Mark has something in an isoblock, a high-tech container that’s damn near impossible to break into, and which is usually used to transport restricted biotech. Apparently there’s a genetic flaw in telepaths and the stuff in the isoblock is the starting point for research in how to fix that flaw.
While Mark and Lise discuss the exchange, Garibaldi notices suspicious folks milling about. The suspicious folks turn out to be after Mark, and a firefight ensues. Mark is killed, but Garibaldi is able to get away with Wade and Lise. However, he accidentally traps them when he discovers that his clearances no longer work. He has them climb through the ductwork, sending them ahead while he stays behind to deal with the pursuers. However, it becomes clear to Garibaldi that their foes are telepaths, so he tells them that they’re going to Docking Bay 3, and to just keep that thought in their heads.
He then leads them to a crowded corridor nowhere near Docking Bay 3, grabs a security guard, tells him to tell Allan to take a squad to Docking Bay 3. Then he tells Wade to get Lise to Brown 14, where there’s a guy who can whip up fake identicards for them.
Allan and a squad arrive at Docking Bay 3 to find two very surprised telepaths. However, as they’re being arrested, they crack cyanide capsules in fake teeth and die, with “To the future!” being their last words.
A very pissed-off Sheridan meets with a very cranky Garibaldi. Sheridan is not happy about the dead bodies and all the crimes Garibaldi has committed. Garibaldi—who unconvincingly insists he has no idea why his clients were fired upon—is not happy about having his clearance revoked just in time to be trapped. Sheridan makes it clear that if anything like this happens again, Sheridan will revoke his business license.
Later, Garibaldi gets a personal message from Lise (identified as Lise Hampton, not Lise Hampton-Edgars). Garibaldi deletes it without listening to it. The next morning, he gets a direct voice call from William Edgars himself, who offers to put him on retainer, though it will mean eventually coming to Mars. Garibaldi accepts.
Now having access to power from Epsilon III, the Voice of the Resistance has its first broadcast, with Ivanova declaring that the truth is back in business.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan is at the end of his rope with Garibaldi, and he’s trying very hard to keep the coalition of nations together in the wake of the Shadow War and in the shadow (ahem) of the Drakh threat.
Ivanova is God. Ivanova rather dopily forgets about the possibility of using Epsilon III as a power source, and for her sins, has to put up with Zathras.
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi obviously has a major blind spot against Sheridan, as he acts mostly reasonably except when dealing with Sheridan or his orders.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari gets one of more bitterly amusing lines when he says, “As much as it may astonish everyone in this room, I agree with G’Kar.”
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar and Mollari both express concern that Sheridan’s using the Rangers to ostensibly maintain the peace along the borders of worlds being threatened by the Drakh and other Shadow allies could be interpreted as a grab for power—which is why Sheridan wants them on his side, of course…
We live for the one, we die for the one. The Rangers’ purpose after the last Shadow War was to be on the lookout for the Shadows’ return. That ain’t happening now, but Sheridan needs them to have a new function.
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. It’s obvious that Lise and Garibaldi still have feelings for each other, but it’s also obvious that Garibaldi is not going to let himself get sucked into that quagmire again, especially now that she’s married to a rich dude for whom Garibaldi is working.
Welcome aboard. Back from “Babylon Squared” is Denise Gentile as Lise, and back from “Racing Mars” is Mark Schneider as Wade. They’ll both be back in “The Exercise of Vital Powers.” Back from “War Without End, Part 2” is Tim Choate, this time as Zathras, as opposed to his prior appearance as Zathras; Choate will return in a different role in Crusade’s “The Rules of the Game.”
Charles Walker plays Ben, Ebony Monique Solomon plays Ben’s daughter, and Richard S. Horvitz plays Mark.
And we hear the (uncredited) voice of Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Edgars. We’ll hear his voice again in “Moments of Transition” before he finally appears on camera (and is credited) in “The Exercise of Vital Powers.”
Trivial matters. The Drakh attacks on border worlds was established in “Lines of Communication.”
We don’t find out if the Narn and Centauri agree to Sheridan’s proposal in this episode—that answer won’t come until next time in “Rumors, Bargains, and Lies.”
The serum that Lise is given is not what everyone here says it is, as we’ll learn in “The Face of the Enemy.”
John Schuck was performing on Broadway, and so was unavailable to appear as Draal, as the script originally called for. Tim Choate was available however, so they brought Zathras back, kind of.
The conversation between Ivanova and Zathras was done as one continuous four-and-a-half-minute shot with no breaks, and was nailed on the first take by Choate and Claudia Christian.
The echoes of all of our conversations. “But only Zathras have no one to talk to. No one manages poor Zathras, you see. So Zathras talks to dirt, or to walls, or talks to ceilings. But dirt is closer. Dirt is used to everyone walking on it—just like Zathras. But we have come to like it—it is our role, it is our destiny in the universe. So, you see, sometimes dirt has insects in it. And Zathras likes insects. Not so good for conversation, but much protein for diet.”
—Zathras, rolling.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “If you’re going to wait for the universe to start making sense, you’ll have a long wait ahead of you.” Back when I started this rewatch with “The Gathering,” I described Garibaldi as, “a walking, talking cliché of the maverick cop,” and man, he embodies that in this episode, except now he’s the embittered ex-cop working as a PI. He’s pretty much a Dashiell Hammett character transported to the twenty-third century, and J. Michael Straczynski leaves no cliché unwritten as we follow Garibaldi’s little odyssey here. We’ve got it all! The opening bit to show he has a heart of gold. The pretty woman from the PI’s past who’s with another man now, who happens to be the client. The PI’s antagonistic relationship with his ex-colleagues in the police EarthForce. The big shootout. The unexpected complication. We’ve even got crawling around in unconvincingly clean and spacious ductwork!
The one thing that might have mitigated this tired cliché-fest would’ve been some indication of the mind-control that Garibaldi is obviously under, but aside from his overinflated crankiness toward Sheridan, that doesn’t really play a role here.
Indeed, we’re not even reminded of it, which means that we have nothing to mitigate Garibaldi being an asshole. His not turning in his weapon, link, or identicard is inexcusable. After all, the last time he resigned—in “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum”—he turned in his link and weapon. For him to get mad at Allan for following procedure is, to say the least, dickish. Plus, allowing military-issue weapons to remain in the hands of a civilian is asking for trouble, which Garibaldi knows full well as the former chief of security.
And yes, a lot of this is related to whatever was done to him between “Z’ha’dum” and “Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?” But it still makes it hard to sympathize with his troubles, and since those troubles take up the majority of the episode, it makes it hard to care about it overall.
Next week: “Rumors, Bargains, and Lies”
Garibaldi watching “Duck Amuck” is supposed to remind us that he’s under external compulsion, since the point of the cartoon is that Daffy is helplessly subject to the whims of outside forces. It’s a great cartoon, but it’s not a particularly useful reminder to any viewer who hasn’t seen it, doesn’t recognize it, or doesn’t remember it.
I’ve also always had a hard time understanding Sheridan’s hostility to Garibaldi. With the way that Garibaldi has been acting toward him for the last several episodes I can see him being hostile now, but in the first few episodes of this particular storyline he seemed needlessly antagonistic and high-handed, which butts up against his main characterization as the folksy captain with an iron core. Everyone acts the way they do so that the game pieces are put into position for the next part of the story.
Sheridan feels personally betrayed, like he needed Garibaldi and the man let him down while being needlessly antagonistic about it. But he may also be a bit afraid that Garibaldi’s accusations about how he changed have some truth. He knows Lorien did something to him, and the experiences he’s gone through have obviously changed him. And he’s in a new job he isn’t entirely suited for: of course he’s keeping personal tabs on Garibaldi, and of course in his new hybrid role as attempted revolutionary leader and commander of what the Rangers are becoming, he’s stretched too thin and Delenn is dealing with her own problems: neither is directly helping the other right now.
As for the noir cliches, I’d say they just reinforce the artificiality of what’s happening to Garibaldi, but I suspect it’s more that JMS always wanted to write noir and he’a taking the chance in a setting where he simply doesn’t have time (or experience) to do better.
On further reflection, I think you and others here are right: Sheridan feels hurt and betrayed by Garibaldi, and is taking it personally. It’s not out of character as such, and, indeed, we’ve already seen that he’s affable and charming, right up until he isn’t. We recently saw his poor treatment of Lyta Alexander in “Epiphanies” where he expects and practically orders her assistance even though she’s a civilian, and then threatens to turn her over to the Psi Corps if she ever does something he doesn’t like again. See also his poor treatment of telepaths in general, and “In the Shadow of Z’Ha’Dum” where he both keeps Morden locked up for questioning well beyond anything he’s legally permitted to do, and uses Talia Winters against her will to investigate Morden.
I think what rubs me the wrong way about Sheridan’s portrayal with regards to Garibaldi isn’t that it’s out of character as such, but rather that we don’t see this part of his character enough. In real life there are people who keep their dark side carefully hidden from common view, and in real life there are people who just don’t get along. But this is a TV show, and for Sheridan as portrayed it’s like someone flipped the switch from “Affable” to “Asshole” for anything to do with Garibaldi, and flipped it right back afterwards. It’s all very abrupt.
It’s probably worth contrasting this with Delenn’s portrayal, since she’s also a zealot with a wide range of behavior, but it seems more organic.
“…the point of the cartoon is that Daffy is helplessly subject to the whims of outside forces. It’s a great cartoon, but it’s not a particularly useful reminder to any viewer who hasn’t seen it, doesn’t recognize it, or doesn’t remember it.”
Except we’re shown enough of the cartoon to make that point clear to a newcomer, including the ending. So I think it works fine to get the point across.
I would say rather than operating as a reminder here this is supposed to be more a hint as we are not supposed really to have figured out exactly what was going on yet (I mean yes it is rather obvious for people paying close attention as we are here – but in the 90s only the most obsessed fans did this). At this point we are SUPPOSED to hate Girabaldi and in this bit he does it perfectly – as boy did I hate Girabaldi when I first saw this. Also, as a young college student I had yet to see all that many rouge cop movies or noir PI movies (now one of my favorite genres) so the cliches here didn’t bother me that much – even now I think they were all done rather well.
I can accept Garibaldi reacting so nastily to Zack being the one to collect his “badge and gun.” In the state he’s in, he’s just been shot in the back by his trusted number 2 again. Even before his brainwashing, he was sensitive to that sort of thing. Now, he’s been primed to see betrayal in everything as a way to isolate him from the command staff.
As Dranon pointed out while I was typing, “Duck Amuck” is our reminder that Garibaldi is being manipulated. I think we see enough of the cartoon to get the point, even if the viewer hasn’t seen or doesn’t remember the details. Knowing more about it, especially how often Daffy is erased and turned into something else, adds more, but there’s enough here.
Two random Garibaldi thoughts: 1. He still eats enormous portions as we noted in the bagna cauda episode. I don’t think American portions had gotten so wildly out of hand by 1997, but I could be wrong. 2. Jerry Doyle aged hard. It’s not just in the loss of his hair, either. His whole face looks like a lot more than 3 years have passed since those flashbacks (OK, it was more like 4 or 5 for Garibaldi, but it was 3 for Jerry Doyle).
I love Ivanova’s scene with Zathras so much. It’s mostly due to Tim Choate, of course. Doing it all in one take is impressive, especially managing to intone “Zathras” several times with virtually no variation. I go back and forth over whether this or the “Ivanova is god” speech is my favorite moment. This one’s more fun, the speech is more actively Ivanova. Draal saying “You’re trouble. I like you,” is third.
I’ve always found restaurant portions to be surprisingly big, though that doesn’t necessarily reflect homemade meals.
My favorite Zathras line has always been “Zathras does not want you being confoozed.”
My favorite Zathrism pops out when I (fanboy) and wife (very much not) face a poor choice or alternative. Sad looks are exchanged, heads shake, then, “Not the One. Not the One.”
For all Garibaldi’s anger towards Sheridan, it’s Sheridan who has started all of their confrontations. And there doesn’t seem to be a reason for him doing so except to show that there’s a reason for Garibaldi’s hostility. “I don’t like the company he’s been keeping” doesn’t cut it, especially since we haven’t seen that company (Sheridan shouldn’t have any clue about Wade or the EarthForce people in the previous episode).
No, Garibaldi started it when he trashed Sheridan as part of an ISN hit piece. That’s what started this, and that’s 100% on Garibaldi. What Garibaldi did with that interview did tremendous damage to the anti-Clark efforts, and Sheridan has every reason to be pissed about that.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yes, Sheridan had a reason to be pissed and that is why he confronted him the first time. And the second time because he didn’t like the way the first time went. This is the third or fourth time, and he seems to be doing it just to be vindictive. If it wasn’t vindictive he wouldn’t have been checking for ways to screw him over (even if they are legitimate), given Zack the end of day deadline, and used “I don’t like the company he’s been keeping” as an excuse. And then threatening to pull his business license for basically the same reason.
Sheridan the man has justifications, Sheridan the Station Commander is teetering on the line of abusing his authority for personal reasons.
Sheridan is pissed at Garibaldi and pissed at himself because he didn’t want to pick a fight any of the times he went to see him but ended up doing just that. If he were looking for an excuse, Garibaldi gives him one this episode. Instead, Sheridan basically says “whatever you were up to, I’ll let it pass this time out of respect, but no tolerance next time.” Keep in mind that Sheridan is the final authority since the split from Earth: Garibaldi has no real recourse beyond leaving.
S5 gives us a Sheridan in a somewhat similar place with Garibaldi but who handles the situation very differently, and it does so after the two live through where this plotline takes them.
I don’t know if that is vindictiveness and verging on abuse of authority. Garibaldi was the Security Chief, not just some officer. Someone with his former post turning against his superiors is a serious threat, and hanging around with the wrong people underlines that he is probably up to no good.
He had insight into classified material, had access to all of the station’s records and systems and is now clearly acting in a way that may not only endanger Babylon 5 but also seriously harm the anti-Clark coalition. And he just doesn’t seem to care about the consequences.
Not handing in a military-issue weapon when your service ends alone is an offense, not to speak of the other objects he failed to return.
Bottom line for me is that it is a good idea to keep him under close scrutiny. Taking things lightly under the current circumstances may something not only Sheridan but also many other persons will live to regret.
Tim Choate’s first appearance as Zathras! He had appeared in the franchise before in other roles, such as Zathras, but it was only later as Zathras that he reached his full potential.
Yes, we are being reminded of it. As already pointed out, that Daffy Duck cartoon is a clever signal that something is not quite right with our former security chief.
We can agree he’s acting like an ass, and we’re certainly not rooting for him in the slightest. We’re just following the mess he’s gotten himself into, bit by bit. And it’s mostly riveting stuff. Turning the tables this fully and having Garibaldi of all people put the station in jeopardy would have been unthinkable not long ago. Keeping ties to Wade would inevitably cause trouble. The ducts may be spacious, but the damage is real – and both Sheridan and Zack are feeling that pain.
I’d still argue this isn’t too out of character for him. Just imagine him back when he lived on Mars, a place that was already not healthy to the mental well-being of any person (just ask Lise). Add in the strained family relations, the alcoholism, the job, and especially the paranoia and trust issues. I can easily picture the Garibaldi from back then acting exactly like the one we’re seeing here, even keeping illegal guns in his quarters just in case. My point is, we’re not supposed to sympathize with him. At least not until the whole picture is made clear.
That aside, the biggest reason for this episode’s existence is of course setting up the Edgars Conglomerate which will be a key factor later in the season. Plus, reintroducing Lise gives the show a hook for bringing Garibaldi out of this dark place in the long run.
I’d forgotten about the Londo/G’Kar story in this one, and it’s actually a prelude to Sheridan’s big poker face-off with the League next week. In retrospect, I feel Sheridan’s ongoing rebranding of the Rangers (which feels really odd without Delenn participating in the story, mind you) is actually part of a much bigger deal in the long run, and was probably a bit truncated as well in the rush to wrap up the major plots in season 4 in the possible event of cancellation.
And then Zathras. Thank actor availability issues for making this little gem of a C plot possible. “War Without End” already showed us glimpses of the comic potential when pairing Ivanova with Zathras. The hint of jealousy that the other Nine feel towards the quiet one in the family is palpable. He was the one who ended up travelling through time and becoming a key figure in beating back the Shadows and shaping Minbari religion, all the while his brothers are left to mope on a lonely planet, eating dust on the ground for protein gain. If JMS hadn’t gotten into the TNT debacle and ended up with a single abbreviated season of Crusade, I like to think we could have instead gotten a Zathras spinoff series with nothing but monologues.
In re Zathras, I was surprised to learn it was an actor availability thing. I assumed up until this point that the whole thing was made up as a way to give us that scene. So had the Draal actor been available, then what was the plan? Presumably something more than him saying, “Sure, you can use my power, USB-C is fine.” I can find references online that the script originally called for him, but nobody seems to want to tell me what he would have done had the actor been available.
I dunno, I think doing a noir detective story with Garibaldi is a good fit. If nothing else, I think Jerry Doyle has the voice for it. I’ve seen people criticize his acting, but I like the way he delivers his lines; there’s an understated lyricism to it, sort of a lesser version of what I love so much about Jack Klugman’s voice. If they’d given him actual noir-detective voiceover narration, I think his voice would’ve been perfect for it.
Although it’s ironic that in such a noirish Garibaldi focus episode, it’s Zack who gets the coolest noir cross-lighting in that initial scene with Sheridan.
I was rather less impressed by Denise Gentile as Lise. But on the upside, we get Efrem Zimbalist Jr., another of the great voices.
I’m not convinced by Garibaldi’s deception for the telepaths. If they could read Lise thinking about Docking Bay 3, why couldn’t they read Garibaldi thinking that he was using Docking Bay 3 as a red herring? Also, who were the telepaths working for? Either they’re Psi Corps or they’re rogues, and aren’t we supposed to be rooting for the rogues? But if they’re Corps, why weren’t they open about it? Too many unanswered questions.
Incidentally, it’s not “the ‘Duck Amuck’ episode of Looney Tunes,” it’s the Merrie Melodies theatrical short Duck Amuck. The title card uses quotation marks, but since it was a standalone theatrical short, its title is properly italicized. And while all Warner Bros. cartoons have come to be collectively referred to in retrospect as Looney Tunes, that was one of the two parallel series, Merrie Melodies being the other.
Given what’s actually in that vial, it could be any telepath going after it with legitimate purpose. And given what’s in the vial, Garibaldi is not working for the good guys in this scenario at all……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Presumably, Garibaldi has better training in resisting telepathic scans and is repeating nursery rhymes in his head. Then again, you’d think given Wade’s position and what Edgers is up to that he’d not only have the same training but would realize these are telepaths after them. I suppose he has reasons not to reveal that.
The telepaths are trying to read moving people without line of sight, so they’re at a disadvantage. It’s also unclear whether this is a Star Wars-style “we want them to escape” situation or if these two agents don’t know about Garibaldi; likely they don’t but we can’t be sure.
Given how Daffy tries to embrace his various roles in Duck Amuck, Garibaldi’s noir detective bit here fits right in. Maybe this episode should be subtitled Duct Amuck.
I think the method of fooling the telepaths is well-established in-universe: as Garibaldi explains in the episode, Lise was scared and broadcasting everything, and it’s established that non-telepaths with disciplined minds have some defenses against telepaths—I’m thinking of the episode where Lyta’s trying to scan someone and he’s doing mental math. It’s not enough to keep her out, but it does make her work harder. It’s plausible that under the circumstances, the telepaths would not be able to get at Garibaldi’s thoughts.
Despite his resignation, Garibaldi has yet to turn in his identicard, his link, or his weapon, all of which is required by station regulations.
I liked Zack’s reaction to this and drawing out the real reason, because it’s kind of ludicrous to cite regulations in this situation. The decision is the right one, but there’s nobody enforcing regulations on an independent space station and Sheridan’s word is effectively law at this point. Valen knows how many regulations they violate each day by continuing to operate as an independent station.
I know JMS needed something to tip Garabaldi from passive loathing to outright hostility towards Sheridan and willingness to endanger the station he’d fought to protect for so long, but it’s hard to see how turning over the weapons he’d been assigned as being the thing to do it. Garabaldi knows damn well that Allen has to do it. He also knows damn well that showing up in person to ask for their return is a sign of respect. Sending an underling to do it would have been a display of cowardice on Allen’s part. It’s just not believable.
Keeping a spare identicard in reserve “just in case” of course does make perfect sense, but Allen’s ability to detect it makes Garabaldi look like an idiot. The disparity in numbers of arrivals disembarking and those passing through security may be one thing, but attaching his real name to an eminently traceable identicard just smacks of amateurism. Even if he’d made it back when he’d expected to remain security chief indefinitely, there’s no way someone like Garabaldi would allow his ace in the hole to be that easy to detect.
And then there’s the entire interaction between Mark, Lise, Wade and Garabaldi in down below. Everything about the conversation is unbelievable. It’s even lampshaded when Garabaldi talks about having the meeting out in the open. There’s no way that meeting should be in public, there’s no way the macguffin should be openly bandied about like that, and there’s no way that all of that exposition should be delivered to someone who’s just a hired gun, even if he is Lise’s ex.
The meeting between Sheridan, G’Kar, and Mollari is excellent, on the other hand. Sheridan’s arguments are compelling. I freaking LOVE watching Katsulas’s acting; G’Kar is clearly uncomfortable with the proposition and wants to argue against it but deep down knows Sheridan is right, even if G’Kar won’t admit it. And I love how the scene ends on an ambiguous note. Contrast this scene with Franklin haranguing the rebels on Mars and having them all dutifully fall in line behind Sheridan’s banner (something JMS has done more than once in the series; the man apparently never has heard the expression “herding cats”).
Finally, Ivanova. It’s interesting watching her broadcast in light of how things have developed in the last twenty-five years. Frankly, these days, she comes across as a cranky podcaster about to spin up some nutty conspiracy theory.
But this is excusable. Back then, our models for authoritarian regimes clamped down on media and tried to limit access to information to official channels. Any alternative to that instantly gained credibility as a result. Today, we know that the much more effective and subtle way to control is to flood the zone with bullshit from all angles and to set people implacably against each other dissipating any sense of focus from potential resistance and ensuring that they’re all going after each other.
The setup of the billionaire oligarch as pulling the strings in the background is spot-on however.
It’s hard to remember exactly what I thought about the Garibaldi/Sheridan dynamic when this first aired. But it’s really hard to have much sympathy for Garibaldi now.
Of course I should be allowed to keep and use my firearm while carrying out my unlicensed PI business in public spaces! There’s no way that my firefights in Downbelow could possibly go badly for anyone. Also, my entire plan for getting around surreptitiously is to misuse my real station credentials, which nobody could possibly detect or do anything to stop.
Also, the best way to re-connect with my ex is to be really snotty and rude to her. Because, of course, she owed me some obligation to reach out when her marriage fell apart.
But Sheridan doesn’t get off particularly well here, either. Why wouldn’t Garibaldi’s security credentials automatically have been revoked as soon as he resigned? And setting that aside, why make Zack go confront him instead of just saying the one sentence to the computer that Zack ends up having to say anyway? I guess the weapons needed to be physically collected, although it seems like a simple extension of demonstrated tech to have kill switches in PPGs as well.
The Ivanova sub-plot is OK, but (although it may put me in the minority) I think the scene between her and Zathras goes on too long. OK, we get it. Zathras is funny. Ivanova being flustered is funny. But we can move on now, thanks.
So you’re saying Sheridan is a dick for sending Allan to confiscate his stuff when he can just deactivate it all. Wouldn’t it be far far more dickish to do that without warning?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Possibly, but it wouldn’t be putting Zack in the middle of it. If it had been done properly, as part of the resignation itself, I don’t think it would have been particularly dickish.
As he said, though, shouldn’t Garibaldi’s credentials have been deactivated automatically as soon as he resigned? (Minority Report had a very similar credibility issue.) Although the gun and badge would have to be turned over manually, of course, but that should also have been done at the time he resigned.
I thought this one was alright. Sure, the plot would’ve been cliched when Doyle was still in diapers, but he does a good job with the material. I felt pretty bad for Zack, though, caught between Sheridan and Garibaldi. Honestly, neither of them are coming off great with regard to their little feud. I’m not saying Sheridan shouldn’t have revoked Garibaldi’s clearance or his government issued weapon, but he’s obviously still taking Garibaldi’s defiance as a personal affront. Maybe he needs another day off.