This is another episode that I tend to not watch very often.  Most of season 1 falls into that category, whereas seasons 2, 3, and 4 have maybe one or two that I avoid.  This one is pretty direct and deals mostly with Sinclair and his past, which may be why I skip over it, another episode that is basically fine, but hampered by the fact that it spends a lot of time and effort setting up plotlines that wont really be examined in the future. For a show that lives and dies by its strong serialization it is no wonder that I typically don’t find it worthwhile to revisit. 

Things start off with Christopher Neame, playing Knight Two and looking suspicious as hell moving through security and exchanging significant glances with Khan’s henchman, otherwise known as Knight One, played by Judson Scott.  All of this is interrupted by some very bold criminals that rough up a security officer and demand that he pays back what he owes.  This is the first glimpse of Babylon 5 crime not run by N’Grath, presumably due to the production finally just giving up on the puppet.

The two creepy men meet up and show off the fact that they are on Babylon 5 to do something to Commander Sinclair.  I feel like clandestine operatives shouldn’t be wearing matching outfits to do their secretive stuff, but maybe that attitude is why I am not in on any conspiracies. 

The security officer, named Benson and played by Jim Youngs, gets a stern talking to from Sinclair and Garibaldi about gambling, and avoiding getting into debt.  Benson gets suspended and Sinclair lays out his sad world view that everyone lies, though Garibaldi is a pretty receptive audience to that view. 

It’s awkwardly slotted into the episode but we get a little more background on Franklin, and his habit of trading his services as ship’s doctor for passage on ships heading out into space.   This light bit of backstory switches abruptly, when Franklin discusses the war.  He and other doctors were asked to help create biological weapons to kill the Minbari, and he burned his notes rather than help out.  One thing I like about Babylon 5, is that while it enjoys morally complex characters it is never afraid to have one be 100% moral and upstanding as is the case in Franklin.  Reminds me of why I also love McCoy from Star Trek. 

Turns out that Sinclair and Garibaldi were right to suspend Benson, as he delivers some stolen equipment to the Knights in exchange for some money, and a possible transfer.  The final piece of the puzzle goes into what clearly looks like some kind of torture chair. 

Sinclair wakes from a nightmare about the Battle of the Line, to find that he is alone on the station.  This is pretty well worn ground for a sci-fi show, but O’Hare does his best to sell the confusion and unease.  He goes through the standard beats of this kind of story before he finds the truth.  The only good thing about this is that it only lasts a few minutes.  I have seen some shows or movies try to string it along for longer, but they kill the mystery pretty quickly with Knight Two coming out of the shadows in full over the top villain mode.

Knight Two decides to explain what he is doing to Sinclair, with a bit of maniacal overacting. I particularly like him gesturing to his head every time he explains that they are connected.  He cuts right to the heart of what they are after: Sinclair was out of communication for hours following the Battle of the Line.  The official story is that he blacked out due to acceleration but the Knights are conspiracy theorists that have different thoughts.

The Knight provides some nice background on Sinclair, a career officer from a family of career officers that was on a fast track for high command.  They decide to try and rattle Sinclair by having him accused of betrayal by a dead comrade.  The aviation nerd in me appreciates that the dead pilot is Bill Mitchell (I even have that award in my home office).  

Getting rattled takes us back to the beginning of one of Sinclair’s character traits.  Seeing his squadron get massacared, but surviving himself, he tried to do a suicide attack on a Minbari ship.  Knight Two implies that he is suppressing a memory from his blackout, before Sinclair clocks him one and finds out that his interrogator can also feel pain in their shared simulation.  The Knights discuss how little time they have and decide they need to push harder even if it kills Sinclair.  

The Knights push on Sinclair and a memory pops out of him being surrounded by hooded figures in a dark room.  The image is meaningless to both of them, so they dig deeper into Sinclair.  The Knight spins his own weird theory on what happened, that despite the Minbari easily destroying the Earth military and intending to kill all humans, that they were scared of Earth’s defenses and instead decided to seed confederates into the Earth military to sell out Earth from within.  I like how this is a well written conspiracy theory.  It is stupid enough and racist enough to be pretty realistic, and it comes from a place of profound psychological trauma that is masquerading as a quest for “truth” when the real truth is mundane and terrifying: the Minbari are more advanced and had little difficulty in bringing the human race up to the brink of annihilation.  

O’Hare manages to do pretty well with Sinclair’s response.  He brings up that it took him time to accept Minbari, and that what he saw at the battle was not his death, as Knight Two implies, but the death of all humanity.  I particularly like him dismissing the why of humanities survival, something that clearly has obsessed many humans, and thinks of it instead as humanity getting a second chance.  The Knight decides to push harder on Sinclair, and we get to see him re-live what he thought would be his final moments during the battle, followed by the memory of what happened next.  

Turns out instead of floating around in space,  Sinclair was brought on board the Minbari ship, and tortured.  He gets a chance to confront the Minbari in the robes, and within his memory he recognizes one of them when he pulls off their hood.  This is apparently startling enough to him that he breaks out of the cyber net and begins going on a rampage.  His mind is still mostly trapped in the past, and it causes him to behave erratically, while having hallucinations. 

While all this is happening to Sinclair of course people are looking for him on the outside.  I also appreciate that the show goes the route of the characters quickly figuring out that Sinclair is missing and quickly reacting to it as a problem.  Delenn gets stood up for a meeting, goes to Garibaldi and Garibaldi starts searching right away.  No second guessing, no assumptions that things are safe, just straight reasonable reactions from the station staff. Ivanova contacts other bases, Franklin worries that the commander could be hurt or stuck, and Garibaldi helpfully points out that he could have already been murdered and dumped outside the station. 

Benson overhears that Sinclair is missing and despite being kind of dim manages to put a few things together.  Benson goes to where they are holding Sinclair and gets killed pretty quickly.  Garibaldi’s aide,(which come on they could have sprung for a name for the guy), reports on the search and mentions that they pulled into two officers that were on suspension, including Benson.  Garibaldi puts a few things together himself and begins searching for Benson.

The escaping Sinclair runs into the search teams and after several gunfights, Delenn decides to calmly walk up to Sinclair and try to talk him down.  Sinclair remembers that it was her that he saw on the Minbari ship before killing Knight One and passing out. 

In another bad sign for Earth, Earth Central decides to take custody of the surviving Knight.  Apparently there is a movement to uncover traitors from the war, and it could even be something that has some level of official sanction.  Sinclair tries to confront Knight Two but his brain has been fried, and all he can do is babble and imply that they never left the simulation.  I am glad that the show does not linger on that thought, something that always comes across as a very juvenile “what is real?” kind of question.  He brings it up but the show basically shrugs and moves on.  

Sinclair comes by to thank Delenn for helping him. She tries to casually ask him if he remembers anything but he denies that.  After Sinclair leaves, a Grey Council member ,played by regular B5 alien player Mark Hendrickson, comes out of hiding and commands Delenn to kill Sinclair if he ever remembers, something she agrees to do.  Alone in his quarters, Sinclair admits to his log that he remembers what happened. He resolves to try and find out more about what happened to him, and how Delenn is tied into all of it. 

Next up is another of the episodes that I think is among the weaker Season 1 entries S1E9 “Deathwalker”. 

The Good

• A bit of Franklin’s personality peaks out, establishing his rigid medical ethics.  Season 1 will test those ethics a few times. 
• It was nice to see more folks from sci-fi as bit players in Babylon 5, a trend that will continue as well. 
• Sinclair’s flashback dovetails nicely with Garibaldi’s warning/observation from Infection. We can see the seeds of Sinclairs PTSD and his survivor’s guilt.

The Bad

• The overacting on the part of Christopher Neame is pretty nuts on this one.  It will serve him better a few years later when he plays the villain of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight.
• The CGI is still shaky and the efforts to make it look dream-like in the first flashback make it look even worse.
• Plot wise this one is pretty compact, which in terms of Season 1 episodes hurts it a little for me.  Season 1 is at its best when there is a character building sub plot moving along as well. 

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• More troubling signs from Earth with these two guys.  The human race not dealing well with losing and winning the Minbari War is a strong throughline on the season, and it is something that informs a lot of the dubious stuff Earth does in the next few seasons.
• Sinclair asks the Grey Council, both of the big B5 questions in his scene, “Who are you?” and “What do you want?” I imagine it is not a mistake on JMS’s part that none of them answer those questions.
• This episode gives Sinclair more reason to distrust Delenn.  Makes me wonder how they would have addressed this in future seasons had O’Hare been able to stick around.  They were quickly able to slot in Delenn being dishonest with Sheridan which may have replaced some of that plot work. 
• This could have gone in “the bad” but I am glad they eventually ditched the weird forehead triangle tattoos for the Grey Council.