Deathwalker feels strongly like an episode of the 90’s.  Former war criminals being exposed and arrested for crimes in long past wars just feels like something that was more in the forefront of the culture back then.  Maybe in thirty years or so MAGA people will have the same thing happen to them God willing.  Either way this is another in my “normally skip” column, and as per usual it has to do with an entire B plot that was setting up something that never happens.

The episode opens with the rarest of Babylon 5 occurrences, Kosh out and about and starting a conversation.  He glides up to Talia and asks if he can hire her for important business.  Even more surprising is that he has apparently done all the correct paperwork before even asking. Still he couldn’t resist being a Vorlon, asking her to meet up with him at the “hour of scampering” much to her confusion/irritation.

With the B plot off and running the A plot catches up quickly.  Na’Toth arrives at customs to meet up with an arriving ship. She happens to spot a strange alien wearing Minbari warrior clothes, and recognizes her.  Shouting “Deathwalker!” she immediately begins attacking the stranger.  It is a pretty one sided beat down before security manages to drag her off and the credits roll.

Sinclair and Garibaldi do a walk and talk while Garibaldi explains what he has found out about the victim, apparently just a trader passing through.  He points out the obvious inconsistency in that she is wearing Minbari clothes and flying a Minbari ship which is not typical of a trader. Both men recognize the name Deathwalker but react with confusion.  They question Na’Toth who gives some background on Deathwalker as a Mengele style figure, and she explains that her entire family have sworn an oath to exact revenge against her.  Sinclair is doubtful, pointing out that it has been thirty years and that Deathwalker would be an old woman. G’Kar arrives and scoops her up to go serve house arrest.

In Medlab Dr. Franklin is astounded at how quickly the victim is healing, a mystery compounded by the fact that he has no idea what species she is.  Sinclair arrives and identifies her as a Dilgar, a race thought to be extinct.  The Dilgar were a race that launched a wide spread invasion of the weaker powers, before losing and retreating to their home system where their sun went nova and wiped them out.  Deathwalker, also called Jha’Dur, was one of their senior generals who was never caught and was presumed to have been killed with the rest of her race.

Franklin and Sinclair are still sure that the victim cant be Jha’Dur.  Garibaldi pops in after going through the victim’s possessions, to show off that he found a Dilgar uniform with the name Jha’Dur on it, and a mysterious drug. Sinclair mentions that his father fought in the war against the Dilgar and that he saw some incredibly awful things on planets that were taken back from them. 

G’Kar is downright understanding of Na’Toth’s crime claiming that he has lots of blood oaths, called Shankars, himself.  He also tells her she is going to have to sit on her hands on this one.  Turns out that the Narns were about to enter negotiations with Deathwalker to take possession of a recent discovery she had made. Na’Toth agrees to delay murdering Deathwalker, as a sacrifice for the good of the Narn Regime. 

Sinclair receives word from a new Senator about Deathwalker.  Senator Hidoshi, played by Aki Aleong, orders Sinclair to send the woman to Earth as soon as she is fit to travel, and dismisses his concern about her being a war criminal out of hand.  I like Hidoshi in later episodes, even if he comes across as a hugely patronizing asshole here. 

The woman wakes up, and confronts Dr. Franklin who is busy examining her mystery drug. Meanwhile Londo starts probing Sinclair with the rumor that Deathwalker is alive and in custody, suggesting that word is out about the woman among the ambassadors.   Sinclair meets with her again, and she taunts him by mentioning the Wind Swords, an incredibly militant faction within the Minbari Warrior Caste.  She identifies herself as Jha’Dur, quickly cutting through the mystery and claiming that she has successfully developed a drug for immortality.  She even promises to share the discovery with the galaxy which seems awfully nice of her. Jha’Dur is played by Sarah Douglas, more famous for playing Ursa in Superman II, and she is able to imbue this character with that same arrogant confidence. 

Sinclair starts checking out the story, asking Lennier to check to see if her comments about the Wind Swords are accurate.  Lennier does not think even the Wind Swords would have harbored Deathwalker, but agrees to ask Delenn to ask if it is true which is a very Minbari dedication to proper procedure. 

G’Kar is in full schmooze mode trying to get the immortality drug for the Narn Regime.  Deathwalker drops a bit of backstory revealing that it was the Earth Alliance that rallied the smaller worlds to defeat the Dilgar.  G’Kar promises to beat whatever offer the Earth Alliance has made, and Jha’Dur counters by also asking for Na’Toth’s head, literally.  G’Kar to his credit leaves, while Deathwalker cackles maniacally.  Her offer to share the drug with the entire galaxy is seeming awfully suspicious at this point.

The human characters debate what to do with her.  Garibaldi comes off the best here, showcasing his very stark black and white morality.  A criminal is a criminal to Garibaldi no matter what magical drugs she is promising. The others are comfortable punting the issue back to Earth, and Sinclair orders her removed. Questions of politics and immortality are a little much for a commander and a lieutenant commander. G’Kar hears about Sinclair’s plan and quickly throws a wrench into things with a bit of rabble rousing. He may not be willing to cut off Na’Toth’s head but he is not giving up the chase just yet. 

Sinclair confronts Jha’Dur about why she would want to share her discovery with Earth, the power most responsible for the defeat of her race. She claims that everyone living forever due to her is a way to leave a legacy for the Dilgar though Sinclair looks pretty doubtful.  They begin trying to move her out and are quickly stopped by a collection of ambassadors led by Ambassador Kalika, played by Robin Curtis, otherwise known as the replacement Saavik from Search for Spock. The Ambassador forces Sinclair’s hand and demands a meeting to discuss Deathwalker’s fate. 

The meeting itself does not resolve the issue at all.  The Narn’s and the Centauri vote for no trial, as both powers apparently collaborated with the Dilgar. The Minbari also vote no out of shame for sheltering her, and Earth is the only vote for a trial.  WIth the diplomatic route closed, the other races pivot right away to sending warships to demand custody of Deathwalker, starting with the Drazi.  Ivanova threatens them enough that they back off, but more and more warships keep arriving from different worlds each demanding extradition.  Ivanova manages to stall things in an amusing way by getting the different captains to debate which one will get custody. 

Sinclair manages to talk the ambassadors down, and come up with a compromise to take Deathwalker to Earth, allow everyone access to the drug, and then put her on trial which seems like a pretty shitty deal for Jha’Dur to be honest.  Deathwalker is not bothered by the news, insisting that Earth will never actually hold up the deal.  Then she drops the bad news about her drug.  Each dose of the drug requires the death of another person, which she is hoping will set off a galaxy wide war as each species seeks to eradicate the others so that its people can live forever.  To any tech bros or tech bro adjacent folks reading please do not take any inspiration. It is an interesting down side, and I imagine she is correct that it would not stop anyone.  If anything the only flaw in her plan is the idea that the rich folks in each species wouldn’t just keep the drug for themselves and harvest their own poor for the ingredients. 

Everyone gathers in the council chambers to watch her ship leave through the jump gate, when Kosh floats on in as well, shocking everyone there.  He manages to outdo that shock a second later as a Vorlon ship comes through the jump gate, kills Deathwalker, then just casually goes back out.  Kosh’s only explanation is that they are not ready for immortality. 

While all of this intrigue was going on, Kosh has Talia meet up with him for a series of weird meetings with a man called Abbut.  Kosh and Abbut say nonsense phrases back and forth, while Talia experiences powerful and frightening visions. Eventually things conclude with Abbut taking off his hat to reveal his brain and some cybernetics.  He removes a data crystal from his head and gives it to Kosh. Talia attempts to confront Kosh about all of this, and gets the normal cryptic Vorlon nonsense in return.

The two plots come together with a small scene at a bar.  Talia relays what happened with Kosh and relates it back to a time she had to scan a murderer.  Garibaldi tells her that Abbott is a ViCaR, and Sinclair explains that the term comes from old Earth tech, the VCR.  Apparently he was able to record Talia’s thoughts during the meetings.  I do like when sci-fi accidentally hard dates themselves. In previous episodes it was the newspapers and here it is treating VCR’s like a tech that was famous. We also get a small bit of color about Vorlons, apparently they don’t like telepaths.  The characters discuss Vorlons a bit more before we get to the episode end. 

Next week we take a look at medical ethics, in a Dr. Franklin centered episode that is not one of my favorites. In fact Deathwalker starts a three episode run of episodes I hardly ever revisit before we get into a good stretch of episodes around the mid-point of the season, a period that JMS excels at in each season.

As always a reminder that you can watch the episodes on Amazon Prime, and on Tubi which has the same amount of ads but is subscription free.

The Good

• I go both ways on the Dilgar makeup but I come down on it being effective.  The vaguely feline appearance works, as do the big eye contacts.
• It is interesting to see Kosh be so active in the events for an episode, though every other character regrets his involvement. 
• Chalk another one up for Sinclair and his wisdom.  It is one of his strong traits, and it is always great when an episode can show off this ability in a way that does not feel forced or too clever.  I also like that they always show him sweating these out, which I think is more fun than having him just be a genius. 

The Bad

• The Season 1 CGI continues to be a weak point, with the Vree ships (the flying saucers) looking particularly bad.
• The whole ViCaR thing is pretty weird overall, and as mentioned above laughably out of date, even within the time this show aired.
• Some of the sets that the show would rely on in the future aren’t around yet, hence the weird scene of everyone cramming into the council chambers to watch Deathwalker leave on TV, instead of going to the observation area that will show up next season.  
• All the stuff about the Wind Swords would have landed better if they had been brought up since the pilot episode.  As it stands fans that would have started watching with episode 1 would be a little lost. 

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• This is the first episode to mention the Dilgar War as a key contributor to Earth’s malaise.  If the Earth-Minbari War was an extremely amplified Vietnam War, then the Dilgar war is the same for WWII.  Many Earth characters will talk about it later on and it always has the air of a “Good War”.
• Talia’s plot is an odd one here, but it was going to get even crazier as originally planned.  She was always going to be the secret traitor whose brain would get overwritten by her secret personality, but the original intention was for the characters to go and rescue her, and use Kosh’s data crystal to put Talia back together.  
• Shankar, the Narn blood oath gets introduced here.  It will factor heavily into Season 3’s “Sic Transit Vir”.  It is a nice bit of continuity that the Earth characters dont seem familiar with it here, but are when it comes up again. 
• For a little while it looks like B5 is setting up the Vree to be the fore grounded second tier alien race, but that is a role that eventually will go to the Drazi, the Markab and the Hyach, while the Vree fade into the background again.  I know in Season 2 some of the alien makeup gets much better so this may have been a production choice to go along with the improvement in prosthetics.