With all the reminders of how things on Earth are still screwed up we may forget that nearly every major race has been dealing with some kind of disaster since the Shadow War had started.  We have mostly dealt with the Centauri falling to a mad emperor, and the Narn regaining their independence and we checked in on Earth, but it could be easy to forget that in order to get the Minbari into the war, Delenn had to basically dissolve their planetary government.  Shit like that causes shockwaves in a society and “Atonement” is here to remind us that the Minbari are still around and that they are a still a very conservative and conformist society that might not be dealing well with great changes. 

We start with a smaller minor change, with Zack officially get his Army of Light uniform, tailored by a whole crew of Minbari seamstresses. Zack does not like any part of this and keeps getting jabbed by needles to boot.  Lennier has a small heart to heart with him about the source of his discomfort, namely taking over as chief for Garibaldi. 

Elsewhere a very officious looking Minbari arrives to take Delenn away.  She requests another day to spend with Sheridan, though she will not tell Sheridan why she is leaving.  The new Minbari advises her to tell him that she may not return to Babylon 5 if the ceremony they are taking her to does not go well. 

In a fun call back Ivanova, decked out in her Green Leader scarf is heading off to a party, passing by Medlab where Franklin is fitting G’Kar for his robotic eye.  G’Kar is delighted at first though upset at the eye being blue.  He is also intrigued by the fact that he can use the eye remotely.  

Sheridan drops by Delenn’s quarters and finds her in slinky dress that leaves him speechless.  She invites him to dinner and to complete the ritual of her watching him sleep for three nights. She lets him know that she is going to return to Minbar for some time, but leaves out the possibility of not returning.  

Sheridan has to leave Delenn to brief Franklin and Marcus on his plan to begin working to move against Earth.  He wants the two of them to go out in secret to make contact with resistance movements. Franklin is senior enough to allow the resistance to know that they are being taken seriously and Marcus will go along as the muscle to keep Franklin out of trouble.  Franklin offers to try and find something out about Sheridan’s father, but the captain refuses, wanting to let his father keep a low profile. 

Delenn ducks out of her vigil over Sheridan, and meets with the other Minbari that are going to take her home. Lennier meets her in customs, accusing her of trying to sneak out without him.  He vows to accompany her and dismisses her notions that he may learn terrible things about her during the upcoming ritual.  

The ritual begins with the other Minbari man, identified in the credits as Callenn, giving a short speech about the dangers of miscegenation, and accuses her of tossing aside her culture and traditions.  They plan to use the ritual known as the Dreaming and a trial to force Delenn to not marry Sheridan.  He comes across as incredibly condescending especially to a former member of the Grey Council, but she agrees to play their game. 

The Dreaming it turns out seems like a cross between a drug trip and a holodeck adventure.  The participants drink from a flagon of smoking hallucinogen and then go into a special chamber to experience vivid memories.  The Dreaming quickly takes Delenn back to her days as an acolyte assisting the Minbari leader Dukhat with his own Dreaming.  The leader is gentle to her and explains it, but her vision jumps forward to when the Earth ships attack and Dukhat is killed.  Her memories jump around including a Grey Council debate about whether the Minbari should establish relations with humanity. Each caste votes no, but Dukhat forces Delenn to answer the question, and she admits she would communicate with them out of simple curiosity.  

Her memory jumps ahead again to Delenn’s investiture as a Grey Council member.  There is a moment where her hand causes a relic to glow, which seems to surprise some of the other council members whereas Dukhat looks smug.  Later Dukhat is explaining it to her, but they are interrupted by an alarm.  Their ship has spotted Earth Alliance ships, and has been unable to understand them, but have decided to approach them with their gunports open as per tradition.  Dukhat is at least smart enough to instantly see the problem with this, but it is too late and the attack happens, with the Earth ships fleeing shortly afterwards.  Delenn is in one of the ships passageways when another Grey Council member asks her to cast the deciding vote: do they try to figure out what happened or do they follow the Earth ships to their base and take revenge.  Delenn orders all the humans killed without mercy.  

Back in the present Lennier is shocked, and Delenn is clearly reliving something that still makes her feel incredibly guilty.  In another flashback we see that Delenn was regretful of her vote almost immediately, but the Warrior Caste decided to take the vote as the beginning of a holy war of extermination, and Delenn did not stop them.  Lennier jumps on this as the reason she has decided to marry Sheridan, out of guilt.  Later on Delenn realizes that the Dreaming was trying to get her to remember Dukhat’s last words to her, and she goes back in to hear it again.  Callenn goes with Delenn and Lennier into the Dreaming this time, insisting that she should not be doing it again.  She forces them to hear Dukhat confess that Delenn was chosen in part because she is a descendant of Valen himself.

WIth a bit of sleuthing Delenn realizes that since Valen was half human like she is, human DNA has been part of Minbari bloodlines for 1000 years.  When confronted, Callenn admits that he knows this truth, and it is something that they try to cover up.  He also insists that Delenn will make things worse. He weasels out by appealing to an older tradition where ancient Minbari would intermarry between factions after wars as a sign of peace.  He claims he can sell that to their clan, and gives his reluctant blessing of her relationship with Sheridan.  Delenn returns home to a relieved Sheridan.

We get one small scene of Marcus and Franklin’s mission to Mars, and it is going as well as can be expected with Marcus irritating the hell out of a grumpy Franklin.  

This episode shows some of the fracturing in Minbari society without the Grey Council.  It really seems as if the Minbari clans have taken over governance, but not seamlessly.  It also shows off some of the major problems with such a tradition bound and conformist society.  Thankfully the more rule bound a society is, the more loopholes they leave themselves but it really seems like something that cant continue. This episode also does a good job of showing a bit more of Lennier’s envy of Delenn and Sheridan’s relationship which is always a nice character beat to keep up with.  Next week we are back on the Earth beat with “Racing Mars”.

 

Where do I know them from?

• Brian Carpenter as Callenn, is still popping up on TV here and there including one episodes stints in the new Night Court series as well as Mad Men.
• Reiner Schone as Dukhat is someone I really have not seen in anything else.  He appears to bounce around TV and voice work, both in the US and in his native Germany.
• Robin Atkins Down as Morann, will eventually show up again as the much maligned character of Byron, but he has also had a long career as a voice actor especially in video games and in Star Wars related shows like Rebels.

 

The Good

• I like the chance to jump away from the Earth centered plots, as the show is supposed to be about a how galaxy of aliens.  
• One small detail that I love is Dukhat telling Delenn to look up with the exact same words she will eventually use on Lennier when they first meet.
• I also enjoy the quick call back to Ivanova accidentally being a leader of one of the Drazi Green/Purple factions. 

The Bad

• As always in Season 4 we could have used some more time with things back on Minbar, but we quickly have to jump back to the main lingering conflict of Babylon 5 vs. Earth. 

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• Dukhat, Morann and the rest of the gang feature heavily in In The Beginning the Babylon 5 prequel movie which is worth a look.  
• The Minbari are still fixated on the souls thing, but it is interesting that they care enough about science to also be concerned about DNA. 
• Everything about Callenn’s objections is straight up racist, which is an ugly trait of Minbari society that almost all Minbari demonstrate even Lennier.
• It was nice to see Delenn reassert some authority with her people in this episode.  Since she left the council in Season 2 she has been on the receiving end of their shit.  She will need that moral authority in a few episodes as things continue to deteriorate back on Minbar.