Confessions and Lamentations
Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri
Click HERE, HERE, or HERE to see pictures from this episode.
Wow.
What a DEPRESSING episode!
And yet, you have to give Straczynski credit, because how many OTHER shows would actually dare to NOT have a happy ending after all the pain and trouble--and so very, VERY unhappy!
This episode had two plots--a main one, and a more lighthearted B-plot. Even though it is my custom, with these reviews, to discuss the main plot first and THEN the small auxilliary backup plots, I think this time I will get the b-plot out of the way FIRST, so that its silliness does not interfere with the impact of the main story thread.
Okay, the B-plot, which is actually the one that advances the arc further along, concerns Sheridan, Delenn, and the infamous flarn. We see HUGE strides forward in the "John/Delenn" relationship--she invites him into her QUARTERS for dinner (well, okay, Lennier is there too, but STILL...), they touch each other for the first time (and SHE started it) and they start calling each other by their first names! (Well, SHE only HAS the one name, but...). And at the end of the episode, poor Delenn, just having been through an extremely traumatic experience, throws her arms around John and buries her face in his chest, crying. Weird, cold, bluish-white lights shine on them; making it a very strange-looking and poignant scene. And from this moment forth, the John/Delenn romance is no longer a thing of subtle hints and clues that only a female, or an exceptionally intelligent male (I'm KIDDING guys, don't fill my e-mail box with hate-mail, thank you.) would notice--NOW it's out in the open. Like I said, this is the b-plot for this episode, but it is very important to the arc in general.
We also learn some more about Minbari culture in this episode. Sheesh, these people have a ritual for EVERYTHING! What a strange, repressed little race...and yet, I imagine that they are not this formal with EVERY meal, that this was kind of their version of the extremely traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. Speaking of the Japanese--I've noted many similiarities between their culture and the Minbari in the past, in terms of body langauge, codes of honour, interior design, etc, and here we see yet another one--they eat kneeling on the ground, on futons, and have very low tables. JUST like the Japanese.
And poor Lennier! He had to spend TWO WHOLE DAYS preparing the food, without sleep and only getting to eat bread and water, and after all that, Sheridan FALLS ASLEEP in the middle of the meal! Stupid Humans! Grumble grumble grumble...
Okay, now that we've got the more lighthearted part out of the way, on to the main plot, which has got to be about the most DEPRESSING thing I have EVER seen in a normal broadcast T.V. show. It seems that this race called the Markabs (their Ambassador was the one who got up at the council meeting in the beginning of this season and warned people about the great darkness seeding itself in many secret places after it was "defeated" the last time...remember that scene?) are dying of some horrible disease. But because it is thought that to have this disease makes you "tainted" and "immoral", (yet another instance of using science-fiction to prove a point about something in our own, REAL world, a technique that has been polished to a perfection by "Star Trek") they have avoided TELLING anybody about it until it was good and widespread. VERY widespread. Not only is it 100% contagious, it's 100% LETHAL. (Made me wonder if it wasn't perhaps genetically engineered...perhaps the Shadows using their natural weakness and enhancing it to get rid of one of the races that knows about them...?)
Dr. Franklin and his buddy, a Markab doctor named Lazarenn (whom I rather LIKED, dangit!) work frantically to figure out a cure, poor Lazarenn even continuing to work on it from his deathbed after HE gets infected. Meanwhile a Markab priest exhorts his people to isolate themselves from the "impure" ones so that THEY, the GOOD people, can survive because they are "righteous". Needless to say, this only makes the disease spread faster among them. It ALSO turns up in a dead Pak'ma'ra--meaning it can jump species...
Delenn and Lennier go into the isolation zone to comfort them (Sheridan: "But they're not your own people!" Delenn: "I was not aware that similiarity was required for the excercise of compassion"--GREAT line) and help a little girl get reunited with her mommy--just in time to see her come down with the disease herself...
Back in Medlab, we see more indications of Franklin's growing stim addiction as he stays up around the clock working frantically on the problem. With the help of the last words of his dying friend, Lazarenn, he figures out that it has something to do with the yellow blood cells of the Markab and the green blood cells of the Pak'ma'ra. Turns out the disease does something to the chemicals in between nerve cells that make messages jump the gap between neurons--so the messages don't get passed on, the heart and lungs aren't told to work, and the person dies. Only those races who makes their brain chemicals in a certain way are affected--so, only the Markab and the Pak'ma'ra--Humans, Minbari, Centauri, etc. are safe. He is very happy to have figured it out, and makes up a big batch of the cure. Franklin then tells the other officers--Sheridan, Ivanova, and Garibaldi about it and gets them to help him carry the vials of serum to the isolation area.
They open the doors, and find...
Death.
There are but two figures left standing, only two people left alive in that entire room--Delenn, and Lennier. Everyone--EVERYONE else, in the entire room, which is to say, every single Markab on the station, is DEAD.
All that stress, and hurry, and hard work--all just a TINY amount of time too late.
On most shows, you'd expect the good guys to WIN, right? You'd expect the disease to get bad enough to be scary, and ALMOST break out of hand, but then at the last second, the cure is found and the plague is stopped. Heck, this kind of thing NEVER happened to McCoy, Crusher, Bashir, or "The Holographic Doctor".
And that's not all. You'd think THAT was depressing enough, that the STATION's entire population of a race was wiped out. How about the UNIVERSE'S population of them?
According to an ISN broadcast we see at the end, the ENTIRE Markab race was wiped out. 2 billion dead on their homeworld, and it had also spread to all 100 colony worlds they owned.
Sure, the Pak'ma'ra on the station can still be saved, but as for the Markabs...
Just like that--an entire SPECIES--is EXTINCT.
Excuse me, I gotta go read something funny or hear a bouncy song or something...
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