“The Wheel of Fire”
Written by J. Michael Staczynski
Directed by Janet Greek
Season 5, Episode 19
Production episode 520
Original air date: November 4, 1998
It was the dawn of the third age… G’Kar arrives on B5, greeted by Lochley. (Why he arrives alone when he left Centauri Prime with Sheridan and Delenn is left as an exercise for the viewer.) G’Kar says that he hopes that his trip to Centauri Prime as the bodyguard of the hated Mollari will have finally dimmed the enthusiasm his fellow Narns have for him, and he won’t be awash in groupies.
This is a forlorn hope, as there are dozens of Narns who have been awaiting G’Kar’s return with bated breath and who cheer and kneel at his rather nonplusssed presence.
Garibaldi is late for a staff meeting, only even showing up because Franklin called him, and it’s obvious when he tries to give his report that he’s drunk off his ass. Sheridan adjourns the meeting, dismisses everyone but Garibaldi. The two of them have a long talk. Garibaldi expects to be yelled at and fired, and Sheridan surprises him by not doing either. He is, however, suspended until he can get sober again. Sheridan admits that they all suspected he was back on the sauce, as it were, but they weren’t sure and didn’t want to believe it. (Given that his drunkenness was partly responsible for several battles against the Centauri getting out of hand, this should, perhaps, be a bigger deal…)
Franklin heads to G’Kar’s quarters, weaving his way around his groupies, one of whom foists a G’Kar action figure on him. G’Kar only lets him in because he’s not a Narn groupie. Franklin informs him that the Kha’Ri has been trying to get through to him, but G’Kar has kept his phone off the hook. (Kids, ask your parents what that reference means.) Apparently, half the planet wants G’Kar back to lead their people, and the other half want his blessing to rule in his name. They talk philosophy for a bit, and G’Kar is at a loss for what to actually do. He doesn’t like either option the Kha’Ri are giving him if he goes home, and if he stays on B5, it’ll be overrun by groupies.
Allan and Lochley speak to an investigator back on Earth, whose current case is the series of attacks on Psi Corps facilities. They’ve traced the money paying for these attacks to B5, and given that all the attacks have had “REMEMBER BYRON” graffiti on them, it all points to Alexander. The investigator instructs Lochley to arrest her—which is easier said than done.
Lochley goes to Garibaldi’s quarters. Garibaldi thinks she’s there to gloat over his misfortune, since the two of them have never gotten along. But Lochley surprises Garibaldi with the revelation that her father was an alcoholic. He went into the military, like his family before him, but he really wanted to be a painter. Miserable at not being able to pursue his dreams, he retreated into a bottle. Teenaged Lochley, not knowing the reasons for her father’s awful behavior and assuming, like most teenagers do, that it was all her fault, ran away from home, and became an addict herself. She figures that’s why she and Garibaldi locked horns from jump: they’re too much alike.
Lochley then joins Allan for the planned arrest of Alexander, currently sitting in the Zocalo talking to an arms dealer. Sheridan is supposed to be there, too, but he hasn’t shown up and Lochley doesn’t want to wait for him. However, Alexander is able to control the actions of everyone in the bar telepathically, making it clear that she’s through being pushed around. And they can’t stop someone who’s been touched by the Vorlons.
Then Sheridan shows up and puts a PPG to her head. He’s also been touched by the Vorlons and therefore can resist her attempts to control him. Lochley then punches her, and she collapses to the deck, unconscious.
Garibaldi meets with Lochley to apologize and thank her. She also has a surprise for him: Lise arrives at the station. Lochley summoned her, figuring having someone you love around can only help.
Sheridan and Franklin discuss what to do with Alexander. They’ve put her in the most distant cell and are using automated maintenance. They’re interrupted by a pissed-off Delenn, who informs them that the Kha’Ri is threatening to pull out of the IA unless they release G’Kar to them. They assume that G’Kar is staying out of a sense of obligation, and that the IA should order him to go home.
In mid-rant, Delenn collapses. They take her to medlab, where Franklin reveals that she’s pregnant.
Garibaldi and Lise talk, and he agrees to return to Mars with her to help run Edgars Industries. Garibaldi is worried he’ll fuck that up the way he fucked up his job as head of covert intelligence, but Lise assures him that they’ll deal with any problems together, the way a couple should.
He also gets an idea that will, as he puts it, kill two teeps with one stone. He goes to Alexander, who telekinetically trashes the surveillance camera so they can talk in private. He offers to use his newfound status as co-head of a massive corporation to help her out. He’ll get a senator that was in Edgars’ pocket to drop the charges against her, and he’ll create a shadow account through which she can funnel her campaign secretly. In exchange, she’ll remove the Asimov that Bester put in Garibaldi’s head.
Alexander asks how much this offer is really worth…
Cut to Garibaldi in Lochley’s office, spelling out the deal: the money Alexander got from the Narns will be put in a trust fund, managed by Edgars Industries, to help telepaths. This will be an open account with full audits and transparency. In exchange, the charges against Alexander will be dropped.
The question now is, where does Alexander go? She can’t stay on B5 and she can’t go back to Earth. G’Kar provides an answer. He also can’t stay on B5 and he can’t go home—so they can leave together. G’Kar wishes to travel the galaxy, to get away from the corrupting influence of fame. He doesn’t want to become an action figure. He could use a traveling companion, and Alexander would suit nicely.
Garibaldi returns to his quarters and tells Lise that all the deals have been made. Only then do we flash back to the rest of his conversation with Alexander: she proposes that there be two accounts. The public one for show, which he told Lochley about, and a shadow account to use against Psi Corps. If, after two years, Alexander is satisfied that Garibaldi is acting in good faith, she’ll remove the Asimov.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan is smart enough to know that his own relationship with Kosh is enough to protect him from Alexander’s Vorlon-enhanced powers, but dumb enough to not understand why she’s so pissy. (Of course, one of the reasons is the way Sheridan used her and abused her during both the Shadow War and the Earth civil war…)
Never work with your ex. Lochley comports herself quite well in this episode, starting with her being nice to G’Kar before he’s bombarded by groupies, offering help and understanding to Garibaldi, and leading the arrest of Alexander.
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi is finally outed as a drunk, and starts the process of trying to get ahold of it. He also sets his revenge against Bester in motion.
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn actually uses a human curse word, referring to the Kha’Ri as “bastards,” right before she faints because she’s pregnant now.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… The last shot of the episode is of Mollari sitting on his darkened throne, alone, right after Sheridan and Delenn muse that he’s probably having a big party. Yeah….
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. The Narns have all gone completely goofy over G’Kar, who has somehow managed to found a cult without any effort or desire on his part. Having seen what power does to people (most notably Cartagia and Mollari), he wants nothing to do with it, nor does he want to become an idol, so he runs away.
The Shadowy Vorlons. The Vorlons specifically created Alexander as a last-ditch telepathic doomsday weapon. Last week, Franklin mentioned the danger of Shadow weapons that were left lying around after they buggered off, but this time we’re reminded that the Vorlons also left a dangerous weapon unsupervised…
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. The attacks on Psi Corps by Byron’s sympathizers have continued unabated. EarthForce was able to trace the money trail, so of course the solution is to hide the money better…
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Apparently, Delenn getting pregnant with her and Sheridan’s child was a 100-to-1 shot, even with her having human DNA mixed in there.
Looking ahead. Alexander’s entire storyline in this episode is obviously setting up the Telepath War that we never actually got to see.
Welcome aboard. Only two guests in this one. Recurring regular Denise Gentile is back from “Darkness Ascending” to make her penultimate appearance as Lise. She’ll be back next time in “Objects in Motion.” And Monique Edwards plays the never-named EarthForce officer.
Trivial matters. When he was seventeen years in the future in “War Without End Part 2,” Sheridan was told by Delenn that they had a son. In addition, there was a mention of their son in the 2362 segment of “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars.”
Lochley’s past as an addict, and her sobering up after the death of her best friend, was revealed in “Day of the Dead.” Bester revealed that he placed the Asimov—a block against Garibaldi doing any direct harm to Bester—in “Phoenix Rising.” Alexander did a deal with G’Kar for funding in exchange for telepath DNA in “Darkness Ascending.”
The results of Garibaldi and Alexander’s alliance against Bester are seen in the novel Final Reckoning—The Fate of Bester, the third book in the Psi-Corps trilogy by J. Gregory Keyes.
The episode title—which is also the title of the season—was at least partly inspired by two different quotes. One is from Shakespeare’s King Lear: “You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave: / Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound / Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears / Do scald like molten lead.” The other is from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: “There is no veil between me and the wheel of fire.”In addition, Ixion was bound to a wheel of fire as a punishment for offending Zeus in Greek myth.
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“What could make her turn like this?”
“Well, let’s see: she was adjusted by the Vorlons, dumped by the Vorlons, used as a weapon, quit the Corps, lost the only man she ever loved, and dedicated herself to finishing his work. Pick one or all of the above and, let’s face it, she’s pissed.”
—Sheridan asking an incredibly stupid question and Franklin providing the “duh!” answer.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “You’re not the only one that’s been touched by the Vorlons.” Back in 1999, I described season five of B5 to people as “ten hours of exciting television jam-packed into twenty-two episodes.” This and the following two episodes are perfect examples of this, as we get one episode’s worth of denouement stretched out over three episodes because so much of the plot was backloaded into season four.
It’s appropriate that this is the episode whose title was used for the whole season, because it’s the whole season in a nutshell: important stuff happens, yes, but almost every scene takes almost twice as long as it needs to. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just one scene, but Sheridan’s talk with Garibaldi, Franklin’s talk with G’Kar, Lochley’s talk with Garbaldi, and Garibaldi’s talks with Alexander all are seriously stretched out. Plus, before Sheridan and Garibaldi’s talk, there’s a lengthy, unheard conversation between Sheridan and Delenn, which is obvious filler, and completely unnecessary.
It has the unfortunate effect of diluting what should be much more effective scenes. Many of them are still somewhat effective, mind you. I have not been kind to Tracy Scoggins in this rewatch, with reason, but I will give her credit: while it was one of the scenes that went on too long, she really sold Lochley’s revelatory description of her past to Garibaldi. (Not surprisingly, the prior good performance Scoggins gave was “Day of the Dead,” which also dealt with Lochley’s addiction issues. There may be a lesson in that…)
I do love seeing G’Kar deal with his groupies, and his frustration with being made into an idol—complete with the idol existing in physical form with the G’Kar action figures. Andreas Katsulas, of course, sells it magnificently. And the moment when Sheridan sticks the PPG on Alexander’s head and reminds everyone that she’s not the only one touched by Vorlons was beautifully done. Indeed, that entire scene is masterfully constructed, with everyone in the bar tapping their fingers and slamming the table in unison being creepy as all hell. Major kudos to Janet Greek, one of the best of B5’s stable of directors.
However, I hate that Sheridan reveals that they suspected Garibaldi’s drunkenness all along, because that points to massive irresponsibility on the IA president’s part, just shy of a war crime. If you suspect that the guy you put in charge of troop movements during a war is a drunk, you don’t put him in charge of troop movements, unless he’s Ulysses S. Grant.
It’s also extremely frustrating to see all this setup for the Telepath War and Garibaldi’s revenge on Bester and know that we won’t see the former at all, though at least the latter was dealt with in the final novel in J. Gregory Keyes’ fantastic Psi Corps trilogy. While some of what we see here is end-of-the-story stuff showing people moving on to their next thing—Garibaldi to take over Edgars Industries, G’Kar and Alexander to leave the station—the telepath stuff is legitimate foreshadowing for an upcoming storyline, and that we never got to see it rankles.
Overall, though, this feels like an incomplete episode, like we only got the first couple of acts. And for an episode with so provocative a title as “The Wheel of Fire,” it’s remarkably, well, sedate…
Next week: “Objects in Motion.”
Touched by a Vorlon, coming this fall to CBS…
I think I’ve somewhat raised my opinion of Patricia Tallman’s acting ability since my first time viewing the series way back when. She’s not brilliant, but did fairly well here.