Movements of Fire and Shadow

Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri

Click HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE to see further pictures from the episode.

This was a pretty good but DEPRESSING episode!!
Despite what Sheridan said, this episode IS about revenge. On the Centauri. Against MY favourite race! DAMN YOU STRACZYNSKI! I have alMOST gotten used to the idea of my favourite CHARACTERS biting the dust right and left, but did you have to go and wipe out my entire favourite RACE?! Sheesh! Isn't that a bit of overkill?
Oh, sure, not all the Centauri are wiped out, but their CULTURE, the main part of them that makes me LIKE them, is wiped out. Those gorgeous buildings--some of which are THOUSANDS of years old, like for example the Royal Palace is at least 2,000 years old, the opulence, the decadence, the fancyness, the colour, luxury, decoration, exotic shapes and carvings, velvet, paintings, gold filigree, etc.--all gone.
To me, I don't CARE what a race LOOKS like. I like them or not for their culture! Now, I could care less whether the Centauri look like Humans with peacock-hair and fangs (and other things) or long-legged beasties with bug eyes that go bump in the night, WHATEVER, I don't CARE. The important thing is how they ACT. And when I saw those Narn and Drazi ships opening fire--my hearts just sank right into my toes.
And now, a totally off-topic word to all you Narn sympathisers out there, just in case you read this and are thinking about sending me a "Ha, ha, we kicked your butts!" letter to gloat at me:
1. "You" did NOT kick "our" butts; there WERE no butts to kick! The Regent sent all the ships away and also turned off the defense grid, so Centauri Prime was totally helpless! In a FAIR fight it would have been very different, bucko.
2. In the immortal words of Laurel Takashima: STUFF IT. I was literally WEEPING by the end of this episode, and no, I'm not afraid to admit that. So unless you are the kind of cruel sicko who likes to poke fun at people when they are SAD, then leave me alone! (Actually, Laurel might have said "stick it" not "stuff it" but I like "stuff" better...)
Onto the actual plot. This was a fairly decent episode in its own right, and it would have been great, if not for the fact that the situation going on here had been set up by tremendously HORRIBLE writing in the previous episode! In fact, I sincerely doubt I will give any episode of Season Five a standing ovation from here on in. It's not just that I resent the fact that my pet race is getting their planet blown up, although of course it is that too, it's that I am MAD that the REASON it's happening didn't have to happen! It's happening "just because" and if I ever see Straczynski on the street, I will give him a major piece of my mind...
There are several different things happening here but they all tie back into the main plotline, as things should be doing by the end of Season Five! On the one hand, Sheridan and Delenn are working out an agreement with the very astute President Luchenko to make a new, destroyer class of White Star ships (I believe the "Excalibur" from Crusade will be one of these, yes?) and Delenn goes off to Minbar to ask the Grey Council about it personally, because it has to be kept secret at first. She says okay, and on the way there, she is attacked in hyperspace by several Centauri warships and her ship is crippled--as is Ranger Lennier, who now has a broken leg. Most of the other crewmembers are dead now, too. Is it just me, or did anyone else get some VERY strong flashbacks of Marcus and Ivanova from the end of Season Four here? And if I'm right...the guy who has the unrequited love for the woman who's life he's trying to save after the White Star battle will die in the process of saving her...oh, geez...br> Every single time I heard Sheridan say "The Centauri War" my skin crawled! There shouldn't BE a "Centauri War" if you guys would use your BRAINS! For that, we have to turn to Dr. Stephen Franklin, a character I have always liked unlike most fans, through thick and thin, and easily one of the smartest people there, and Lyta Alexander.
Back on the station, things are going bad. For the Centauri, I mean, naturally. (You'll find that I completely drop all pretense of being neutral and open-minded here in these reviews and just go all out nationalist--hey, my HOMEWORLD is being destroyed!) It seems that the Centauri on Babylon 5 are being KILLED by the other station residents out of revenge! (There's that word again.) Some of them are even just kids! Totally innocent civillians! I don't know about you, but this just made me snivel. (Not to mention, my character Lufa Caldoni is going to be in major trouble--as I have it figured out in my story, he's posted on B5 in Season Five, AND he's the last living relative of the Regent, who is--through no fault of his own--extremely unpopular with EVERYONE right now! So his life is in TERRIBLE danger! Oh, dear...) Anyway, Vir is pacing about his new, nasty, cramped, boring quarters, nervous as all Hells with a good reason, when Franklin and Lyta come by. Why? "Certainly not for the decor!" No, seriously, they come by because Vir asked them to. See, the Drazi have been attacking Centauri ships and killing lots of them, but they haven't been returning the bodies for proper burial. This is one of the main rules of the Alliance they're breaking here! So Vir begs Franklin and Lyta to go to the Drazi Homeworld and see if they can't find out what's happening to the missing Centauri bodies. For all he knows, the Centauri on the defeated ships could still be alive, and maybe the Drazi are torturing them or something! So why Franklin? Because he, being a good doctor, would be able to tell by looking at the bodies whether they have been killed in a space battle or by something else...Franklin eventually agrees to go, but the increasingly cold, snippy, and SCARY Lyta frostily tells Vir that she will NOT go along with Franklin automatically, that she will CONSENT to work with him on this but only if Vir pays her 500,000 credits. YIKES! It's for the "Help the Telepaths" fund, basically. Vir reluctantly agrees and they leave on their mission.
(Side-note: I know Lyta is tired of being kicked around, but the new Lyta is turning NASTY. We see her edging even further towards the darkness in this episode--especially while on the Drazi Homeworld. Now, I know she has a point, but I would have liked it if the others just started being nice to her, rather than that she has to turn into this bigoted Mundane-hating villian...I mean, she's not even a FUN villain, she's just a JERK!)
Meanwhile, Sheridan and Lochley (whom we haven't seen for quite a long time; hi Lochley! (Keela waves.)) are discussing the Centauri strategy with the Brakiri, Drazi, and Narn generals. (The Narn guy was a rather classy, elegant Narn even if I DO hate his guts, played well by Robin Sachs, who has been on the show before but I forget as what. Maybe another Narn...?) It seems that the Centauri are fighting TWO wars--one defensive, to protect Centauri Prime, and the other offensive, and that the two teams don't really have much to do with each other. But WHY are they doing this? What is the long-term goal, other than "honking off their neighbors"? One of the generals makes the motion that maybe they should go attack Centauri Prime to shut them down. (At this point, even though I KNEW it was coming, I went, "NOOOO!!!!!" at the T.V. screen.) Sheridan says NO, absolutely not, we want to keep this as clean a fight as possible. This is NOT about revenge!
Oh, but it is...but it's NOT the Centauri getting revenge against everyone else, it's someone ELSE getting revenge against the Centauri! However, nobody figures that out until it's way too late--ARGH! I guess this was supposed to be dramatic irony, and I guess that some people might have actually cheered when they saw the Centauri being "bombed back to the stone age", but I just hung my head and wept...pass me a Kleenex, would you...?
After the meeting, the Drazi and Narn generals meet in private to make their own plans--they will each take parts of their forces and go attack Centauri Prime behind Sheridan's back. I SO hoped that the elegant-looking Narn general would be one of the CLASSY, educated Narns and say NO, but of course he said yes, it was inevitable. Sigh...
Cut to Centauri Prime. Every single time they showed that beautiful, peaceful scene of the outside of the Royal Palace, with the sunny sky, and the pool, and the people walking calmy by, I always wondered, "Is this going to be the very last time I ever see this scene?" and my eyes would water up...but enough about that. Londo and G'Kar are still in prison, discussing how Londo can get out without saving face, and also how he can "take out" the Regent. (NO!! The poor little guy has enough problems already and he's going to die in a day or two as it is, don't PICK on him! Sniff!) They then go to sleep as it is night and Londo has a most disturbing dream. Or is that..."dream"? As in, "Oh! It was just a dream! That's all! Just a dream..." SHUDDER! Anyway, in Londo's "dream" (?) he sees himself being operated on by these freaky aliens with very long fingers, and one who looks different who says "yes...he will do nicely..." and wakes up, startled, rolling violently off his bench.
After admonishing him about his snoring and making some snooty comment about Londo's popularity, G'Kar gets Londo to be released from the cell alone, without G'Kar, without loosing face--by using a very very GROSS method. Now, maybe this was supposed to be FUNNY but toilet-humour has NEVER been my thing! I almost threw up--not just from the grossness, but from the writing. Is it just me, or has Straczynski's mind flown south for the winter lately? First we've got a war happening "just because", then we've got toilet jokes in place of the REAL Babylon 5 humour--which USED to be actually FUNNY--that we're used to!
Anyway, Londo meets with Minister Cholini (formerly known as "that SNOOTY Minister"; he has a name now...) and his assistants to discuss how the offensive war the Centauri are waging is a bad idea. Cholini snootily tells him that as far as he knows, their ships are only being used for defensive purposes and "anything else is propaganda". Now, this scene sorta left me wondering...does he actually know about it and he's just lying, or is he sincerely out of the loop...?
Then finally Londo has a short audience with the Regent, and in both of his two scenes, (his last? sniff!) the Regent is always sitting in one beam of sunlight that's coming into the darkened rooms. Just dramatic cinematography, or a link back to his line where he told Londo to "run in the sunlight" when he still could? At any rate, Londo begs him to stop his war, but the Regent tells him that he has no choice, and that he gave the orders, yes, "after a fashion"--but naturally is not allowed to say any more than that. But the real personality is still there, despite the Keeper--still fighting--he tells Londo that he has always TRIED to do the right thing, and that he would never deliberately hurt anyone who was kind to him, as Londo was. Oh, geez.. But this conversation doesn't TELL Londo anything, so he goes away totally confused.
Meanwhile, G'Kar is still in his cell, writing some more, and like I said yesterday, it looks like somebody is going to have their life SAVED, ironically, because he was in the DUNGEON, being punished! I hate it when my Seeress powers make a nuisance of themselves...
Back on the Drazi homeworld, Franklin and Lyta FINALLY find their hotel (the same one Garibaldi was at) after several hours of wandering the streets totally lost--Franklin, being a typical MALE, refuses to ask directions! They then meet with a Drazi doctor, who at first seems like a very nice guy until Lyta finds out that he is lying (Franklin does NOT tell anyone that she's a telepath. Sneak-eeeyyy....) and then these two other Drazi thugs rappel in from the balcony above them and start attacking! Franklin manages to shoot one but Lyta uses her mind powers to make the other guy SHOOT HIMSELF.
YIKES. This girl is turning MEAN...
So then they take the doctor and force him to take them to where the bodies are being held, but when they get there they discover that there AREN'T any bodies, just these weird black pod things, and when Lyta moves her hand over one of them she hears a very familiar sound...
the scream a Shadow vessel makes when it goes overhead.
WHOAH boy.
They are then shot at and have to leave, but Lyta grabs a pod thing for further study before they escape.
They call Sheridan and tell them what they have found out, later. It seems that the offensive Centauri ships, the ones behind the attacks, have NO people on board them at all--just these devices, which were left behind by the Shadows on Za'Ha'Dum, and which can fly a ship without any crew at all. So either the other races that escaped from Za'Ha'Dum sold these things to the Centauri for some reason, or...
and Lyta, LYTA, of all people, is the one to FINALLY FIGURE IT OUT!--someone ELSE is using these devices to SET UP the Centauri!
Sheridan FINALLY realises that that's what's really going on--someone is making the Alliance turn against the Centauri for some reason! Then he notices about the fact that some of the Drazi and Narn ships are missing. That would make sense--the Drazi have been competing with the Centauri over shipping rights and stuff for some time now, they do not like them at all. (If you ask me, whatever TINY shred of respect or even tolerance I might have once had for the Drazi went STRAIGHT out the airlock with this episode. You mess with MY PEOPLE, you PAY for it!) So then he tells the fleet to turn around and try to catch the Drazi and Narn ships and stop them. But it's too late...
Back on Centauri Prime--seeing the beautiful Palace and all that for the LAST TIME--sniff! (pass me that whole box of Kleenex, will you?) we have a scary and heart-rending scene in which the Regent tells Londo to come look out the window, it's going to be a lovely night "the LAST night I will ever see." (Oh, GODS...sniff!) (The way he's talking, about how he's so exactly sure of when he's going to die, down to the minute almost, makes me wonder--is he being affected this way by the Keeper itself, alone, and he dies much faster than Londo will (SNIFF!) because he is more fragile, or is it something else? Maybe the Drakh needed a weaker interim ruler while they were getting everything set up, and they knew it would take x amount of time from the beginning, so they were steadily putting toxins into the interim ruler's system or something so that he'd die once the REAL revenge started, just in time for them to put their REAL ruler in place? The way the Regent is talking also seems to suggest that he will be executed at a specific hour, once the Drakh no longer have use of him, and he knows when. SHUDDER!) Londo tells him not to be silly, he still has many years left. (And he SHOULD, by all rights...) The Regent tells him that he should not be wasting his last free hours, he should go enjoy himself. They know. They told him. They said that he (the Regent) would not be alive by morning. (Oh, GEEZ...) and that, furthermore, Londo would be EMPEROR by TOMORROW! Whoah!
"They made me do one last thing for them, and I did it," he says, sadly looking out the window, standing in the sunlight while he still can. "It's a relief, in a way, knowing that it will all end soon. I'm glad that I won't be alive to see what happens afterwards."
"What?" demands Londo, who is not sure if this guy is just NUTS or not but is definitely getting frightened, "What did they ask you to do?"
"I ordered all our ships away on a false emergency mission," he says with a sad half-smile, "and I had our defense grid deactivated."
So in other words, not only is EVERYONE now mad at the Centauri FOR SOMETHING THEY DIDN'T DO, but now they are also completely defenseless!
"I'm going to stay and watch it from here, I think..." murmurs the Regent. "The sky should be lighting up right about now, it should be very beautiful..."
"NOOOO!!!!" yells Londo, "Great Maker, NO!!!" And he helplessly runs (in slow-motion, which in this case adds definite symbolic tension to the scene) out the door of the palace JUST in time to stand there and look up as jumpgate after jumpgate after jumpgate forms...
And out pour the Drazi and Narn ships, and the sky rains fire...
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Click HERE to return to the main Season Five Reviews page.

Click HERE to return to the main Reviews page.

Click HERE to return to Centauri Prime.