“Revelations”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jim Johnston
Season 2, Episode 2
Production episode 202
Original air date: November 11, 1994
It was the dawn of the third age… A meeting of the B5 advisory council is a bit lacking in attendance: G’Kar is still missing and Delenn is still in a cocoon. After Mollari rants and raves on the subject, Sheridan adjourns until the next day in the hopes that one or both will show up.
G’Kar, it turns out, is part of a fleet that is being attacked by Shadow vessels on a planet out on the rim. The other ships provide cover fire and sacrifice themselves to allow him to reach the jumpgate for a return to B5.
Sheridan meets with Franklin, who says that Garibaldi remains in a coma, and has resisted all traditional treatments. Franklin asks Sheridan’s permission to use the Great Hit Point Rearranger he acquired from Dr. Rosen, and Sheridan agrees, though he’s concerned that Franklin intends to be the source of the life energy that will be transferred to Garibaldi.
Liz Sheridan visits the station, the first time brother and sister have seen each other in person in ages. As they catch up, we learn a bit of the captain’s backstory: he was married to Liz’s best friend, a xeno-archaeologist named Anna Sheridan, who was killed on a mission while serving on the vessel Icarus out on the rim. It’s been two years, but Sheridan still hasn’t gotten over her death, partly because he blames himself. He cancelled a planned vacation because of his duties, which led to her taking the Icarus job, and he also forgot to tell her he loved her the last time they talked. The guilt is eating him up.
Mollari meets with Morden to be reassured that no one outside the Centauri Republic will connect him to the attack on Quadrant 37. Morden assures him that that’s the case, while the Centauri government is all impressed with him, and also that if he wants another favor, he just has to ask—“just pick a target!” Morden also asks Mollari to inform him if he hears of anything odd happening out on the rim.
Na’Toth goes to G’Kar’s quarters and is surprised to find G’Kar in them. The ambassador reveals that he has learned that they face either a brand-new foe—or a very old one. The Book of G’Quan references a very old enemy that nearly wiped out the galaxy a thousand years ago, and G’Kar fears that they have returned.
Sheridan insists that he and Franklin take it in shifts to restore Garibaldi’s hit points—and that Sheridan take the first shift, as it were, since Franklin is needed to make sure the Great Hit Point Rearranger is working right. All goes well, and Garibaldi awakens. He is rather surprised to learn that, since he was last conscious, Santiago was assassinated, Sinclair was reassigned, Sheridan took over, and Delenn’s in a cocoon. Sheridan introduces himself, and Garibaldi regretfully says he doesn’t remember who shot him. (Jack, who did shoot him, is standing in the doorway ready to respond in case Garibaldi does remember, but then departs with a relieved look on his face.)
Lennier discovers that the chrysalis has broken open. He finds Delenn cowering in a corner, her body covered in lizard-like scales. Lennier contacts Franklin, who makes a house call to examine her (reassuring Lennier of his ability to maintain doctor-patient confidentiality).
G’Kar speaks to the advisory council, though neither Delenn nor Lennier are present. He tells of his exploration of the dead worlds on the rim, and found indications of a species secretly gathering their forces. G’Kar barely escaped with his life. The Narn government has sent a ship to a world called Z’ha’dum, where the ancient enemy spoken of in the Book of G’Quan is supposed to have come from.
After the meeting breaks, Mollari seeks out Morden and tells him of the Narn expedition to Z’ha’dum.
Garibaldi asks Winters to telepathically scan him. He knows that whatever she finds, or helps him remember, won’t be admissible in court, but Garibaldi doesn’t care, he just wants to know. Sure enough, Winters’ probe enables Garibaldi to remember everything he saw when he got shot—including a reflection of Jack standing behind him before he shot Garibaldi in the back.
Jack is quickly arrested, but his attitude while being interrogated is snotty and arrogant and completely unworried about consequences.
President Clark contacts Sheridan directly, expressing concern about Jack’s role in Santiago’s death and the possibility that Clark’s predecessor was assassinated. He requests that the prisoner and all evidence be transferred to EarthDome for a full investigation.
A Narn ship exits the jumpgate near Z’ha’dum and is blown to pieces by Shadows the nanosecond they transition to normal space.
Na’Toth informs G’Kar and the rest of the advisory council of the Narn ship’s destruction. It’s unclear how it was destroyed, since it happened so fast. It might have been an accident, but either way, the Narn aren’t willing to send another ship.
Lennier then brings Delenn in: she is now, apparently, a human/Minbari hybrid. For one thing, she has hair now…
Sheridan has dinner with Liz and the latter gives the former a data crystal with the last letter Anna sent to Liz. The letter makes it clear that Anna was going to cancel the vacation herself because of the Icarus gig, but Sheridan cancelled it before she could. This expiates a lot of Sheridan’s guilt, and he thanks his sister.
Garibaldi expresses concern over his interrogation of Jack, as the latter used the same gesture and comment used by Bester when he left. Now Garibaldi is worried that Psi Corps is influencing things, especially since they very controversially endorsed Clark in the last election.
G’Kar expresses concern to Na’Toth over what’s happening, quoting William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming.”
On a hunch, Ivanova checks the progress of the transport that was supposed to bring Jack to Earth—at one point, he was transferred to an unregistered ship, destination unknown. Attempts to contact Clark about this have gone unanswered. Sheridan and Ivanova are both seriously concerned about this.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! We find out that Sheridan’s wife died two years ago, and he still hasn’t completed his grieving process over it.
Ivanova is God. Ivanova’s natural paranoia proves useful, as she checks on the prison transport, and learns that the conspiracy is apparently real…
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi is livid when he wakes up to find out that he failed to stop Santiago’s assassination. He is also snotty to Sheridan when introduced to him—to his credit, Sheridan is kind and polite back, and doesn’t even mention that he sacrificed some of his own hit points to help save him. (Though I’m betting Franklin told Garibaldi at some point…)
Nothing’s the same anymore. According to Delenn, sending Sinclair to Minbar was the first step toward building a bridge between Earth and Minbar…
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. …and the second step was Delenn becoming a Minbari/human hybrid, er, somehow. Weirdly, she talks as if this was the plan all along, even though she repeatedly says she has no idea how she was supposed to come out of the chrysalis.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari is a fascinating mix of frightened and eager in his dealings with Morden—on one hand, he knows what Morden is giving him is powerful and dangerous; on the other hand, it’s really cool…
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar comes really really close to finding out the truth about the Shadows.
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Winters’ scan enables Garibaldi to identify his shooter. They trust her enough for that, at least.
The Shadowy Vorlons. The Shadows make short work of G’Kar’s fleet, though when one is damaged, it very obviously screams.
Looking ahead. Mollari jokes that Morden’s associates should just wipe out the Narn homeworld while they’re at it. Morden very seriously says, “One thing at a time,” a comment that will prove prophetic.
We also see the planet of Z’ha’dum for the first time. It will not be the last.
Welcome aboard. Beverly Leech makes her one and only appearance as Liz. Beth Toussaint debuts the role of Anna, but the role will be played by Melissa Gilbert (at the time, Bruce Boxleitner’s real-life wife) when the character returns in season three.
Several recurring regulars appear: back from “Chrysalis” are Ed Wasser as Morden, Gary McGurk as Clark, and Macaulay Bruton as Jack; and back from “The Quality of Mercy” is David L. Crowley as Welch. It’s Bruton’s final appearance; Wasser will return in “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum,” McGurk will be back in “Voices of Authority,” and Crowley will next be seen in the very next episode, “The Geometry of Shadows.”
Trivial matters. The Great Hit Point Rearranger was first seen in “The Quality of Mercy.” The Shadow attack on Quadrant 37 happened in “Chrysalis.” Psi Corps endorsing Clark was seen in a newspaper headline in “And the Sky Full of Stars.”
The original plan was for Delenn to present as male in season one and then transform into a woman in season two (which is why Delenn’s makeup was the way it was in “The Gathering”). This proved unworkable, mostly because all attempts to make Mira Furlan seem masculine were unconvincing.
Mary Kay Adams makes her debut as Na’Toth, taking over from Caitlin Brown, who declined to return in order to pursue more acting roles that didn’t hide her behind tons of prosthetics. (Unlike the other main cast, who signed up for five years, Brown was a last-minute replacement for Mary Woronov when she quit the role in the first season; Brown was therefore only signed on for one season.) Adams will only make one other appearance after this, despite being listed in the opening credits for the whole season.
Z’ha’dum is obviously a name influenced by Khazad-dum from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (B5 is rife with LotR references), though J. Michael Straczynski has unconvincingly denied this.
Jack’s “be seeing you” and okee-doke salute mirror Bester’s departing moment in “Mind War,” and both are references to The Prisoner.
Kosh appears during the council meetings, but has no dialogue.
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“Oh, God—I’m out of it for a few days, and the whole place goes to hell.”
—Garibaldi’s response upon waking up to many changes.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Weep for us all.” Having spent most of “Points of Departure” setting up the new post-Sinclair status quo, “Revelations” then addresses the task of catching some of the balls that were thrown in the air in “Chrysalis.”
The revelation of Delenn’s transformation is interesting, and certainly works nicely with what we learned last week, both about the shared souls between humans and Minbari and Lennier’s statement that humans and Minbari will need to come together to face the coming darkness.
But what’s weird is that apparently Delenn had no idea this was gonna happen, which really makes no sense, either in the moment or in light of what happens over the course of the show. The link between Earth and Minbar is crucial to one element of the story arc, so it just seems weird that Delenn becoming part-human wasn’t part of the plan all along. It doesn’t help that we have no idea what the other options were (beyond, apparently, “scaly lizard thingie”). It just feels like constructed suspense prior to the reveal.
I’m back and forth on Garibaldi being brought out of his coma by the Great Hit Point Rearranger from “The Quality of Mercy.” On the one hand, it’s good that the show doesn’t do the Star Trek thing of forgetting all about game-changing technology after it’s introduced. In fact, we’ll see the Great Hit Point Rearranger again. On the other hand, it’s incredibly deus ex machina. On the third hand, that it’s a deus ex machina is on the label, as it were. The gun was already on the mantelpiece…
My only issue with G’Kar’s storyline is that he apparently never at any point took any pictures or scans of the ships that attacked him and his fellows? I mean, seriously, why isn’t he showing the council the visual images that his ship surely must have taken of their foes? Aside from that, Andreas Katsulas lends his usual gravitas to the proceedings, making it clear that this is a threat to be reckoned with. And I’m a sucker for anyone who quotes one of my favorite poems in the world. (I’ve mined “The Second Coming” for story titles many times in my career…)
The resolution of Jack’s storyline is exactly as expected, but falls flat for me, mainly because of the complete lack of impression Gary McGurk provides as Clark. He doesn’t come across as a bland bureaucrat, he doesn’t come across as an insincere slimeball, he doesn’t come across as a charismatic leader. He, unfortunately, comes across as a 1990s Central Casting white dude who’s there to take up space and nothing else. Given how important Clark is to the overall storyline, they really needed to do a better job of casting the role.
And finally we get to learn more about our new lead, as Sheridan has a wife he’s still mourning after two years. Bruce Boxleitner plays Sheridan’s grief and guilt well, and I like how Beverly Leech plays Liz as the sibling who just wants to smack her brother upside the head.
After spending far too much of season one waiting for, um, revelations, it’s nice to see so many questions answered in one episode, even though it goes ahead and asks a few more, and does so in a compelling manner.
Next week: “The Geometry of Shadows.”
