Meditations on the Abyss
Reviewed by Ranger Lufa Caldoni
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This was a rather good episode. It managed to be funny and lighthearted while ALSO moving the actual arc along, and had some rather touching moments as well.
There were two main plotlines and two subplots--Lennier's Ranger training, the "Centauri Raiders" plot (doesn't that sound like the name of a baseball team or something? The Centauri Raiders. Never mind me, I'm being silly today...), G'Kar's trying to "enlighten" his followers whether they want it or not, and Vir's promotion. And all of them except the G'Kar one are in some way connected to each other!
Let's get the G'Kar one out of the way first since it's the unconnected one. This subplot was nice because G'Kar finally got his REAL eyes back (more or less), it advanced a nicely blooming friendship between him and Franklin, we learn a bit more about that whole Foundationist's religion (which sounds kinda cool to me), and we hear some more of him "teaching" his followers--or TRYING to. That one idiot guy, the one who stuck his face in the book, is starting to get on my nerves! He asks G'Kar what is God, and what is Truth. G'Kar gave him this big long flowerly philosophical speech which basically boiled down to--as far as I could tell--that God was essentially the best in OURSELVES, the ideals that we look up to, and that the harder we search for enlightenment the better we all are. But this IDIOT then repeats, "But what is God, and what is Truth?" At this point I would have been ready to slam his face in a book again, but G'Kar simply rolls his eyes and gives his followers what he realises they REALLY want--a soundbite. No kidding, a religious soundbite! "Truth is a river", he says. "And God is the mouth of that river."
THIS makes his moron followers happy. All they wanted was some wise-SOUNDING but meaningless little catch-phrase that they could go around quoting to sound more spiritual than the other Narns, that was it! I don't have much hope for this religion--not unless it gets some INTELLIGENT disciples, and pronto.
On the other hand, I did like the fact that Garibaldi's COFFEE STAIN was reproduced in every single copy! That's hilarious.
Now for the Lennier's training plotline--the longest and most important one in the episode. After beating up some male chauvanist pig jerkazoid in Down Below, Delenn meets with Lennier in the middle of the night to ask him to do something for her--she tells him that they suspect the Centauri of being the ones who are attacking the Alliance ships, but they do not have actual proof yet. She needs a Ranger, who are trained in just this sort of thing--secret supervision--but none of them really know about the Centauri, how they think, how they fight--except Lennier. So would he please spy on them for her?
Lennier says yes but we don't get to see him DO any of this just yet 'cos the entire plotline with him in this episode concerns his Ranger training, which leaves him rather too busy to do any spying just yet. I assume he'll do some in the next episode (I'm not a Seer, I'm just going by the commercial that they showed today...). I must say, I really feel SORRY for poor Lennier lately! The poor guy can't "get close" to Delenn and have her true love, but on the OTHER hand, she doesn't seem to have any compunction about calling him in any time she feels like it and then USING him and throwing him away, does she? I normally like Delenn BUT...she's treating Lennier the wrong way. I think, in fact, that it very well could be her treatment of him that causes him to betray the An'la'shok...just as LYTA'S always being used and thrown away by the others caused HER to go bad! Are we seeing any parallells here...?
This was actually a good plotline. Even though the showing of the Ranger excercises did not really advance the arc, it was fun seeing the things they go through, and unlike Psi Corps, Ranger training really IS still mostly a secret to us. Also, Captain Montoya ("You keeeled my fatherr! Prrreparrre to die!" sorry, wrong Montoya...) was a really fun character. He was funny, charming, creative, much smarter than you think, more lenient than he seems at first, and MEAN. He had a positively WICKED sense of humour. Leaving them out to sit there for the gods know how long with only 1 hour of air..."A little competition never hurt anyone"..."Never, ever assume that your commanding officer can't listen in on a 'private' channel!" etc. While he was entertaining to watch, I sure hope I get a slightly easier commander on MY White Star...
And then there was Findell. Poor Findell. Even if he did come from the shallow end of the gene pool as far as brains are concerned, I kinda felt sorry for him. I thought for SURE he was gonna die when he started doing that kamikaze dive at that asteroid--Lennier's saving of him was unexpected (in this show, you EXPECT people to die!) and ingenious. And the special effects in that entire sequence were just to DIE for! I don't want to know how Lennier himself was feeling by the end, 'cos I got sick just WATCHING them careen around at weird angles and breakneck speeds like that!
Now onto the Centauri Raiders--no, not the winners of the 2352 Galactic Series, but the plotline about the Alliance and the Centauri--or, as my mother so aptly called it, "The Idiot Plot". This one just made me MAD. The Drazi Ambassador has SOME NERVE to come down so hard on the Centauri like that when HIS race was the one enslaving the Empheely in only the third episode of the season! HIS people messed up in the Alliance FIRST. And don't even get me STARTED on all the others. They are still acting just as boneheaded as they were in "The Ragged Edge"--even more so, here. Now, instead of just talking about Londo behind his back after he leaves the ordinary meeting, they are DELIBERATELY calling together meetings of the entire advisory board that he is EXCLUDED from! What total morons! They still think he can't be trusted and that the information should be kept from him for his own good, and that, if they're right, "it could destroy the Alliance!"
Well, that wouldn't HAVE to happen if you'd just TELL him what's going on and let HIM try to FIX it!!!
MORONS. Complete, utter, MORONS. Did someone turn your brains off today? ARGH! Only three more episodes before "The Fall of Centauri Prime"...and it's largely THEIR fault!
Okay, okay, enough of that, I shouldn't get worked up like that but ARGH this makes me mad. Onto the Vir plot now, which was funny, so I can end on a more lighthearted note. Londo hears someone at the door of his quarters, so he opens it up to see--a bundle of packages, and a very harried voice begging him for help. It's Vir. VIR!!! YEAY, VIR! We haven't seen him in SO long--not since "The Very Long Night...", the SECOND EPISODE! I missed him, I really did. He had a great part in this one. He explains how he had to go out and get a lot of supplies now that Londo is back because while he was gone, there was nothing here to eat...well...nothing FRESH. Londo demands what Vir means by THAT, and he embarrassedly explains that he's been eating at...McBari's. The "Sign of the Golden Headbones". I was ON THE FLOOR at this! One of the funniest moments in the series. And it gets BETTER. "But you are not biologically equipped to handle fast food!" says Londo (interesting...) "Yeah, well, but it tastes so good going down," says Vir. "Coming back up again, that's another matter..." (I now know I MUST be a Centauri in disguise or something, because not that long ago, I ate a McDonald's sandwich and got VIOLENTLY sick from it. We're talking retching up my toenails at 3 in the morning here. Of course, the real reason is that the mayonnaise must have been off, 'cos I don't ALWAYS throw up from fast food--just that and maybe one other time...) After Vir tells him that he bought these things from a Drazi merchant on the Zocalo, Londo then very rightfully gets paranoid and takes a little wand thingie and sweeps all of Vir's bags, and finds a tiny listening device at the bottom of a bag of bagels. (Yes, you heard me, bagels. Evidently Centauri like those...so do I!) As he does so, he breaks it in half, which disables it but does not turn it off, and goes on about how SORRY he was that he SAT in Vir's supplies, he really should be more careful where he puts things! Vir obligingly "apologises" into the microphone, and then Londo goes into this HILARIOUS running gag about the Drazi Ambassador's wife being so disgusted with the "inadequacies" of her husband that she is sleeping around with EVERYTHING else on the station, and just as he is getting to the juiciest part, WHOOPS he "accidentally" STOMPS on it and crushes it!
(When he unexpectedly shows up to the meeting that he was NOT invited to, later, he makes all these wonderful comments to the Drazi Ambassador about "How IS your LOVELY wife? I trust she is not feeling too TIRED lately?" bwahaha.)
Then he tells Vir that he is going to be his replacement for when Londo goes to Centauri Prime and becomes Emperor. That's right, he's finally going to be "Ambassador Cotto". (Kiron Maray and Aria Tensus--or Kiron and Aria Maray, as they may very well be by now--should be pleased.) Vir is just SO honoured and thrilled by this, it's so cute. But--Londo tells him--he isn't quite ready. Not YET.
Then Vir discovers the Drazi who put the transmitter in the bag later on in the Zocalo, and confronts him. The Drazi overconfidently sneers at him and says that he isn't afraid, he knows that Vir Cotto is a weakling, and a coward. Vir is pushed backwards into a cart but gets very, very mad. I was waiting for him to pound the guy but he ran off.
However, he ran off with a PURPOSE. He dashes down the corridor, right into Londos' quarters, grabs a SWORD off the wall and runs back out again WHILE asking to borrow it! (Going on the premise that it is easier to get forgiveness than permission, I guess...but Londo doesn't mind, he just smiles.) Vir then dashes back out into the Zocalo, SMASHES a fruitstand just to get the jerk Drazi's attention, (and then winces hugely with pain as he realises for the first time that it HURTS your arm to whack something hard with a sword--I take it he's never been trained with one? It would make sense with what little we know of his background...) and then CHASES him all over the place, whacking hard at random things, until he has the Drazi pinned in a corner and makes him promise to take back what he said. He puts the sword right to his THROAT and calls him "spoo-for-brains". (this made me crack up; I'VE called people "spoo-for-brains" in my reviews and stuff, and I've never seen this episode before today!) The Drazi backs down in a BIG hurry. And from the background, Londo smiles "like a proud father", as the B5 "good guys" call it when discussing this later on at dinner, at how well "the little guy" did against an opponent twice his size.
NOW, Vir is ready.
And on that more uplifting note--the gods know we need them, considering how depressing everything is going to get VERY soon--we leave you. Valtoo!
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