We have been burning through plot at break neck speed and this episode keeps up the tempo.  More big revelations in the Shadow War, as well as increasing desperation on the Centauri side of things make for a quick episode, but it also comes in and appears to solve two major plot points very early in the season.  Everyone is in a big hurry to get where they are going in Season 4.

We start off with a somewhat light scene when Ivanova requests the use of a White Star to go and search for more of the First Ones while insisting that she does not need Lennier to go with her as she has become much better at the Minbari language.  Delenn and Marcus spare her feelings when she is not as strong as she thinks and Delenn assigns Marcus to accompany her. 

Back at the Imperial Court, we get to see some mild torture of G’Kar as the court plays with him while he is chained and forced to wear a painful looking jester’s outfit.  Cartagia is amused, but Vir and Londo are horrified by the treatment of their old adversary.  Later Vir and Londo discuss the encounter in the gardens, with Vir worrying about how much more the Narn can take.  Vir also voices concern about the plot to kill the emperor on moral grounds.  His equivocation is interrupted by Cartagia arriving with blood soaked hands loudly complaining that G’Kar’s refusal to scream.  He warns Londo that if G’Kar wont scream he will have to execute G’Kar.  This little encounter convinces Vir of the necessity of murdering Cartagia.  

Marcus and Ivanova are having difficulty with their quest, and have to keep moving from place to place with no sign of the First Ones.  On their way back to the station after striking out, they have a cringy conversation about relationships, where Marcus reveals he is a virgin.  Mercifully the conversation is cut short when they detect something odd in hyperspace and move in to investigate.  They discover a massive armada of Vorlon ships including one that would dwarf Babylon 5 itself.  

Delenn holds things down at Babylon 5, sending Zack out to follow up on a lead on Garibaldi. Zack leaves the station with a few fighters and shuttles.  She heads over to speak with Lyta, and discovers that New Kosh has ordered her to throw out all her possessions as distractions from her work with him.  Delenn is shocked on Lyta’s behalf, but moves on to asking about the Vorlon’s plans and Lyta is clearly terrified at the prospect of spying on the ambassador for Delenn.  She eventually agrees to try.

Zack and his group quickly run down a shuttle and attack it.  They do minor damage to it, before it launches an escape pod and explodes.  Thankfully for them, and something they dont really question, the escape pod has Garibaldi onboard, undergoing what seems to be some kind of conditioning.  They get him back to Babylon 5 and rush him into Med Lab. Eventually he wakes and despite his nightmares he insists that he does not remember anything from the time he was gone.  Zack delivers the bad news that Sheridan is dead, as we cut to a mysterious ship in hyperspace. 

Lyta eventually does try and read New Kosh’s mind.  It goes about as well as she thought it would and he attacks her when he detects her intrusion. Whatever he does keeps her down and out for hours, until Ivanova comes to her quarters in person to bring her in on a meeting.  It becomes clear that she knows about the Vorlons.

In G’Kar’s prison cell, Londo is berating a barely conscious G’Kar about his refusal to scream.  G’Kar wants to stick to his principles but Londo points out that upholding those principles will kill G’Kar and then all of his people. 

Delenn has a sitdown with the Brakiri ambassador who lets her know that a number of other ambassadors are planning a demonstration to oppose her plan to attack Z’Ha’Dum.  Delenn insists that they be allowed to go forward with their protest, but she plans on crashing it to speak and let others hear her side.

In a worrying sign, Vir and Londo have been dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and shown into one of the emperor’s secret rooms.  Thankfully for them, he does not want to talk about their coalescing conspiracy, but about G’Kar and his screams.  He calmly explains that he is going to have G’Kar whipped with an electrified whip that will continually increase the voltage with each lash.  At forty it will kill him.  Cartagia insists that this means the outcome is solely going to be at G’Kar’s discretion and the torture begins. The scene is pretty brutal, cutting between Vir’s disgust, Londo mouthing scream at the silent G’Kar, and Cartagia counting the whip strokes and getting more and more excited, until G’Kar finally relents on the 39th stroke with a haunting prolonged scream. 

Ivanova and Marcus return and order the station to begin scanning the sector of space where they spotted the Vorlon fleet. As they arrive the rally begins, noticed by Lennier who alerts Delenn to the location.  While all that happens, Ivanova and Marcus arrive at C&C in time to see the mysterious ship arrive.  They cant make contact but the ship knows their codes and begins docking without permission, causing a security alert.  Garibaldi hobbles down to the docking bay as well. The rally begins as everyone is scrambling and the ambassadors are not shy about calling out Delenn personally as wanting to attack out of grief.  Things begin to get out of hand before Sheridan strolls out onto their stage, freshly delivered to the station by the mystery ship.  He drops a quick Monty Python reference and then hijacks the event to rally everyone to gather a massive fleet to end the Shadows forever. 

Sheridan calls a quick meeting and lays out everything he learned about the source of the conflict. Garibaldi interrupts the proceedings to bring up his suspicions about Lorien, but everyone else seems to take Sheridan’s word that Lorien can be trusted.  Ivanova arrives with Lyta and brings the news of the Vorlon fleet. It turns out the fleet they saw has the capability to destroy whole planets, and the Vorlons used it to annihilate a Shadow base and the planet it was on.  The news flattens the characters as they absorb just how outgunned they are.

Another break neck speed episode, though this one feels a bit like treading water, since most of the action was just bringing us back to status quo with Garibaldi and Sheridan.  Most of the interesting character momentum remains with G’Kar and Londo as they plot to overthrow the government on Centauri Prime.  Next week everything continues towards a boil in “Falling Towards Apotheosis”

Hard to say where you can find Babylon 5 at the moment(maybe Roku Channel?), but I am continuing on with some pretty good quality downloads from Itunes that I made years ago.

Where do I know them from?

• No real notable guest actors in this one. 

The Good

• We get our characters back in one place which allows us to begin shifting large amounts of story.
• G’Kar’s scenes with Londo are all pretty excellent. I also like the little bit of business between Vir and Londo, where both are trying to silently insist that the other go into Cartagia’s torture closet first. 

The Bad

• Once again I feel like in a normally paced season of Babylon 5 we may have waited a little longer to have everything back to normal.  Doing it this quickly kind of made splitting everyone up in the first place seem kind of pointless.  

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• Londo and Vir seem pretty secure in their conspiracy, if Cartagia is inviting them to secret late night torture sessions. 
• G’Kar’s whipping is chock full of biblical references as being lashed 39 times instead of 40 is in the old testament. 
• Given Lennier’s love of Delenn I like how even in an episode that moves this quickly we get a short shot of Lennier looking disappointed that Sheridan is alive. 
• I mentioned it above but I like the small nod to Monty Python when Sheridan admits to being dead but being better now.  
• The Vorlons are now off and killing anyone they view as corrupted by the Shadows.  That does not bode well for the many many races that made deals with them, not to mention Londo himself.