Babylon 5 5-09: In the Kingdom of the Blind

Episode:

97

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Director:

David J. Eagle

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Air Date:

18-Mar-1998

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Babylon 5 season 5 episode 9 - In the Kingdom of the Blind. I watched episode 7 - Secrets of the Soul last time so I should probably explain where episode 8's gone.

I'm following the Lurker's Guide's Master List, which tries to put the episodes in the place which makes the most sense for continuity. It only moves a few stories around, in fact the last time I skipped an episode like this was back in season 3, and I think this might be the last episode I'm watching out of order.

The Master List reordering leaves this run of episodes looks like this:

07 - Secrets of the Soul
09 - In the Kingdom of the Blind
10 - A Tragedy of Telepaths
11 - Phoenix Rising
12 - The Ragged Edge
08 - Day of the Dead

So episode 8's not coming around for a while.

Why is this relevant to you? Well it's going to affect what kind of SPOILERS you're going to read here. I only write about the episode I'm on and the ones that came before it, I don't spoil what comes next, so this reordering means that I won't say a thing about anything that happens in Day of the Dead here. On the other hand, my eventual Day of the Dead review could be full of spoilers for episodes 9-12... theoretically.

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Hey the main cast are back, and Sheridan's changed his terrible desk! This new one looks a lot better.

Garibaldi's got some fun news: there's been a major increase in attacks on Alliance shipping lanes lately. Even better, the attacks have been completely random, but they've hit every member race equally, and no cargo was taken. It's like the bloody Shadows all over again!

Without anyone to blame the member races are going to start blaming each other, so the Rangers are going to have to get out there and figure out who's doing it.

Then we get to see one of the attacks ourselves, with the attacking vessels mostly obscured to hide who's doing it.

We do get this split-second glimpse of the back end of one of the mysterious warships, but you'd need to have a real encyclopedic knowledge of Babylon 5 starships to identify the perpetrators from this.

ACT ONE

After the opening titles the episode brings us to Centauri Prime and... hey it's the same kind of ship!

It's played as just a typical establishing shot though, not a big reveal, so I'm not sure we're supposed to be putting the pieces together just yet. It's something for people to catch on a rewatch though.

Then we get a shot of the Centauri Royal Palace, looking a little different to the one I'm used to. The model appears to be the same as ever, but the textures seem to have been changed. Also the windows are solid grey now.

Here's the shot I'm more familiar with, cropped to match. You can see how the spirals around the pillars used to be grey, and the spikes on the corners of the roof were gold. I guess the Regent redecorated.

Hey it's Londo and G'Kar! I feel like this is the first time we've seen main cast members off Babylon 5 so far this season. It's also the first clue that this episode takes place before Day of the Dead, as the two of them departed the station in Strange Relations and this is clearly their arrival at the palace, leaving no opportunity for appearances in between.

Minister Vitari (I don't think we've seen him before) starts talking about G'Kar being the entertainment and suggests they get him in chains and put him in cell. It's like he missed the memo that they're in an Interstellar Alliance with the Narn now. It also seems like they're just going to ignore the fact that there was an assassination attempt on Londo the other day. I suppose that's old news now.

Londo reveals the purpose for G'Kar's presence here: as his bodyguard. Then G'Kar reveals his real agenda (to aggravate Centauri ministers), by asking when they will be having dinner.

Now we're with Lyta and Byron back on Babylon 5, in a scene that takes place the day after Secrets of the Soul. That's the second clue that this episode comes before Day of the Dead. They apparently moved Day of the Dead because the NBA play-offs were coming to interrupt them soon and they wanted to organise the episodes in a way that provided a sustained build up of intensity before the break.

Anyway, this conversation's a bit of a retread of the one from the end of the last episode, to get viewers up to speed. Byron tells his group of rogue telepaths that they all know the truth now: some telepaths evolved naturally on other worlds, but the majority of them were created by the Vorlons to fight against the Shadows. I'm not sure if anyone here actually helped fight the Shadows, they're not necessary war veterans abandoned by the nation that relied on their abilities, but being genetical altered outcasts is plenty bad on its own.

The war's over now, the Vorlons and Shadows are gone, and there's no one left to blame. But the telepaths still have to live with being persecuted for what the Vorlons turned them into and now they're going to do something about that.

Then we get to see G'Kar doing his actual job: searching Londo's visitor and then closing the doors behind him. I always feel sorry for Andreas Katsulas when he's in a scene that doesn't give him anything to do, because of all that makeup they put on him. The actor apparently really loved playing a bodyguard though, and an outtake reveals that he showed up to the set with Secret Service shades one time.

I don't think we've ever seen this particular Centauri before, Lord Jano, but he seems like a decent enough bloke. He stood there with his arms up allowing a Narn to search him without comment or complaint and Londo is very happy to see him. However it turns out that Jano's the bearer of some bad news about the Regent: he's been hiding in seclusion, and the staff sometimes find him wandering at night, talking to himself. Once he even asked a palace guard to kill him. What's even weirder is that he was very drunk at the time, and he used to cultivate sobriety as his only vice!

Oh plus reports on the fleet status, grain production etc. have been classified top secret and for the Regent's eyes only. It's a bit of a concern and Jano's hoping that Londo will be able to figure out what's going on.

Jano returns to his room to find the lights are broken. Personally I would've gone off for a new lightbulb and maybe a couple of palace guards, but he gets a hand-held light globe and goes in to investigate. Then he finds the Regent sitting there!

The Regent's not impressed with his decor, but he admits that they're way beyond pastels now. It's been ages since we last saw the Regent, over 20 episodes, not quite long enough to forget that he was fond of pastels, but maybe long enough to maybe forget that he has a mind-controlling Keeper parasite on his neck. Just like the one we know Londo will one day end up with. The actor seems to be making up for lost time, putting on a real performance. In a good way!

Jano's seemed like a very sympathetic character so far in his four minutes of screen time, but Centauri are pretty unlikeable by default so the Regent puts in a little extra work to make sure we care about him, mentioning how Emperor Turhan would carry him around the palace as a child. The Regent's one of the few likeable Centauri as well, which makes it even more tragic that he's come here to watch Jano get murdered.

I'm not sure what the right way to film someone getting killed by an unseen assailant is, but having a shot of him put up his arms to protect himself from the camera followed by a shot of him bouncing off a slightly flimsy looking wall probably wasn't the optimal way to do it.

RIP Lord Jano 7m20s - 12m50s.

ACT TWO

Act two begins with an establishing shot of B5 that looks like it's from back during the Shadow War. There are a lot of Alliance ships flying around outside today.

Then we get a council meeting, for the first time since The Paragon of Animals I think. They're just finishing off the last of their business for the day, and everything's all very calm. Though there is one last thing Sheridan has to mention before they go: they're uplinking an updated report on the security of their shipping lines later tonight. So he hasn't told them about the attacks yet!

Man, I know Sheridan and Delenn don't want to get the ambassadors riled up over this, but downplaying the attacks to this degree isn't going to win much trust.

The ambassadors all head out down the hallway, blissfully unaware of the news that's coming. They're also blissfully unaware of the telepaths lurking there in plain sight. Byron's telepaths look just like regular people so there's no way to tell... well, except for their matching hair and clothes I suppose. That's just as much of a uniform as the Psi-Cops costumes.

I wonder if this is supposed to be a high security area of the station for diplomats only. I hope not, otherwise their security is kind of crap.

One of Byron's people silently reports to him that it's started. So now he has to go find Garibaldi to carry out the next phase of the operation while Lyta stays here to coordinate things. That's pretty much all that happens in this scene.

Back in the Royal Palace, G'Kar's proving to be a hit with the ladies. Londo's not having much success with Minister Vitari though. Vitari won't let Londo see the Regent and he has no idea where Lord Jano is. But he will go and look for him.

Then Minister Vole arrives (a third Centauri character that we haven't seen before) and expresses his displeasure with Londo's choice of G'Kar as a bodyguard. He feels that Narns are barbarians who'll stab you in the back. G'Kar corrects him, saying that it's always been Narn tradition to stab them in the chest. So that didn't help calm things down much.

It turns out that Vole recognises G'Kar from when he was held prisoner by Cartagia, and he's brought the guard who whipped him! I wonder if writer jms knew this scene was coming down the road when he gave us a reminder of the time he was whipped a few episodes back in The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari.

Vole puts the guard's fate in G'Kar's hands (along with the whip) and promises that there won't be any consequences for whatever he chooses to do. The music gets intense and G'Kar decides... to talk. He starts pulling a Byron, posing a hypothetical scenario to Vole in which he hits him, and asks where he'd direct his anger afterwards: at the fist or the heart that commanded the fist? (G'Kar's a lot better at these speeches than Byron is). Basically the point that G'Kar's getting to is that he's not going to blame a guard for carrying out Cartagia's orders. Cartagia's dead and so is his own desire to punish the Centauri.

Then he implies that right now it's Vole's mouth that's inflicting the most pain. It's really hurtful being called a barbarian!

It's at this point that Vitari returns with bad news about Jano: his boots are currently dangling in the middle of the room. It seems that he has killed himself, though Londo and G'Kar don't believe that for a moment. He was murdered.

Byron drops by Garibaldi's office to request a meeting with the council and Garibaldi has a pretty reasonable response. He says that if Byron can't tell him what his news is, then he can't drag the President of the Galaxy and the ambassadors from all the Alliance worlds together for a chat. They can't just assemble the council for you on a whim Byron, those alien extras spend hours in the makeup chair!

So Byron says that he is has information about the mysterious attacks on Alliance shipping! But of course Byron can't tell any one person about it, he has to tell them all at once.

Garibaldi is kind of paranoid, but he's been working with Byron's telepaths for a while now and he's willing to give the guy some trust. He has no idea that Byron is scanning his mind to find out exactly what he wants to hear.

Then it cuts to a council meeting already in progress, so I guess Garibaldi made Bryon wait until the next one.

Straight away Byron basically admits he lied to get in here and then tells them what he really wants to address them about. He's got detailed information on how the Vorlons created telepaths on a hundred different worlds, presumably all pulled out of Lyta's brain (unless Franklin's been digging up secrets with his computer again). He says that telepaths were created to help them, and now he wants something in return: a single habitable planet. Sheridan immediately says there's nothing they can do, but Byron encourages him to give the matter slightly more than zero thought by revealing his secret weapon: blackmail!

Violence is not their way, information is their way, and they've been tailing ambassadors for days stealing all of their darkest secrets right out of their brains. Suddenly the Franklin plot last episode about the Hyach's dark secret seems a lot more relevant. Plus now that I think about, Byron finding out the Drazi's dark secret in The Paragon of Animals is what got Sheridan to go along with Garibaldi's plan to hire the telepaths in the first place.

I can see the logic behind Byron's plan but it's funny that someone with such strong feelings about violence didn't consider how invading their thoughts could be considered a kind of violence in itself. I'm sure from his perspective all his telepaths basically did was overhear the ambassadors talk, but that's not how they're going to see it.

Mundanes have always been frightened of what telepaths can do and here Byron's gone and made their worst fears come true. He's gone straight to the nuclear option, without even trying any other approach first, and he's gambling everything on the council's willingness to negotiate with terrorists. Even though the telepaths can never hand over their blackmail material and the only way the ambassadors can ever be sure their secrets are safe is to murder every single telepath on the station.

I'm thinking that Byron may have flaws as a leader. Oh and I should mention that blackmail is a tactic used by cults.

ACT THREE

Act three begins with a rare shot of the floor, as Garibaldi goes on a book-kicking rampage against the props the member races apparently tossed to the ground in fury.

Hey man, the telepaths must have gone to a lot of effort getting these printed up, especially considering they have barely any money! Weird how they've all landed open on the same page though.

It's also weird that the copy that Delenn's reading is entirely blank. It's so like her to be the one who actually bothers to read through it though.

Garibaldi's kind of pissed off that he trusted the telepaths and got played by them, but Sheridan's not blaming him, he's blaming them. The telepaths probably only picked up surface thoughts, nothing major, but the ambassadors are going to assume that they know the worst things possible.

Delenn wonders if Byron's right and they are obligated to help them, which Sheridan can't entirely argue against. Though he thinks that giving them a homeworld is clearly out of the question for a whole bunch of reasons that will never get mentioned in this episode. He admits the telepaths may have a point, but they went and did this the inconvenient way. Delenn mentions that Earth's president said the same thing about Sheridan's armed insurrection against Clark and then hands Sheridan the blank book on the way out. Garibaldi points out how inconvenient her memory can be. Though it's not clear how she knew about it to begin with, as she wasn't in the room during that sceen.

Anyway I'm just glad that the episode isn't making our heroes out to be total monsters.

Now we're back in Londo's room again, and I'm glad G'Kar's been allowed inside this time. G'Kar is currently eating and Londo claims that's basically all he's been doing here. But G'Kar defends his gluttony, saying he might be called upon to give his life to save Londo and it's bad luck to die on an empty stomach.

Just then Londo's gets told by Minister Vitari (the one from the start) that the Regent's finally ready to see him! So that's a bit unexpected. It's also a bit strange that they'll be taking the creepy stone passageway route to his room...

...the one that assassins like to lurk in.

Seems like G'Kar has just been handed a fantastic opportunity to show how seriously he's taking this bodyguard job!

G'Kar actually goes over and tackles the two assassins at once, telling Londo to run! Damn, man. But Londo actually comes over to help him!

Unfortunately they're separated by a door coming down and Londo finds himself face to face with the Minister Vole! (That's the one from the throne room who tried to get G'Kar to take revenge on a guard.) It seems that he considers Londo to be an obstacle to his ambitions, which makes sense seeing as Londo's going to be Emperor soon. He's an obstacle to everyone's ambitions.

Vole throws a CGI knife at Londo, but it freezes in place in front of him and then flips around the other way! Is this telekinesis? I don't think it's ever revealed. It's also not revealed if Vole was the one who rigged Londo's ship to explode.

Either way his story ends here, as he pulls a dramatic twirl to show that the knife's sticking out of his chest now, and then drops to the floor.

Londo turns around to see who was responsible with their advanced mental powers/technology, and it's...

A Drakh! Oh no. Wait, who are these guys again?

I think the episode suffers a bit from the huge gap between it and season 4 episodes like Epiphanies (the Regent gets a Keeper), Racing Mars (Franklin encounters a mind-controlled agent with a Keeper), and Lines of Communication (Delenn discovers that the Drakh are attacking League ships). It's been like 20 episodes since we last saw anything of them.

The Drahk looks considerably less terrible in this lighting than the one in Lines of Communication did. It helps that he's not lurching around like an idiot this time and they haven't put a weird blur filter over him.

4-11 - Lines of Communication

It's possible that they've tweaked the mask a little as well but it's hard to tell.

The door comes back up, revealing that G'Kar's won his battle against the two assassins, but he's too late to see the Drakh and he'd likely have no idea what it is anyway.

The episode cuts back to the telepath colony, where Byron's having an actual conversation with one of his people! It's rare to find one who actually talks, plus he's got short hair as well.

Byron's a bit annoyed, as someone's ignored his instructions and gone out to get supplies. The plan was that they all stay here out of everyone's way, not doing anything wrong, until the council races decide to do the right thing. But it seems like Byron didn't think of stockpiling food first in case things go bad. In fact they've made no preparations at all really. He's relying on the fact that security will have to save them, even though they were less than helpful all through the last episode.

Just then Lyta remembers that she's in the episode too, and gets a vision of some Drazi beating up the guy who went out. Byron wants them to abandon him to the Drazi to avoid doing anything violent, but the short-haired guy says they need to protect each other and goes off with a bunch of the other telepaths to save him.

Soon there's slow-motion fighting in the hallways and the telepaths who stayed behind are sad.

It's no wonder Byron hates violence if he feels it telepathically every time it happens. Lyta consoles him as it fades to black.

ACT FOUR

Zack finds the President of the Galaxy sitting in one of the ambassador's chairs in the council chamber, thinking. Seems they just finished a debate and it turns out all the ambassadors were in agreement for once! So Sheridan is withdrawing the telepaths' protection and is giving Lochley permission to start bringing them into custody. Turns out that they weren't registered as telepaths when they came in so they have no clear number how many there are, but reports say that there's between 50 and 150 of them. Man, I'm actually surprised that Zack of all people wasn't keeping count of how many of Byron's people he let in the front door. Plus I thought Byron promised he'd send them the paperwork!

Sheridan does agree that they owe them but right now they need to get them into custody, seeing as they've earned the hatred of every single Alliance race all at the same time. They can work out the rest when things calm down.

Byron knows they'll be coming for them, so he's switching to plan B: he's going to have all the doors welded shut! Then, when the galaxy hears how they're starving to death it might soften their hearts! That's seriously his plan. I suppose hunger strikes are a thing, but he doesn't quite seem to realise that the alien governments would see their deaths as a win. I'm kind of surprised he isn't trying to get any leverage out of all those secrets they stole.

Now that Byron's getting tested we're getting to see who he really is as a person, and it turns out that he's staying true to his morality even as things get bad. Plus as a bonus he's stopped speaking in parables. He's not all that great of a leader though and now people are starting to turn against him due to his poor decisions. Short haired guy is going to lead another group to go and fight back. Kill, if necessary, with the knives they just took from the Drazi .

I have to wonder what I'd do in this situation. I'm thinking I probably wouldn't want to be on team that's staying in DownBelow to deliberately starve, but the team going for violent retribution doesn't seem so appealing either. I may be betraying the telepath cause here, but I think I'd be tempted to cut my hair, stick on a brighter shirt, and lay low, hoping that I'm not listed on any files.

They we get a night time shot of the Royal Palace which reveals that they've repainted it the way it used to look, with grey spirals and gold spikes. I'm glad they got that sorted out.

Minister Vitari is back and Londo's curious if he was setting him up for Minister Vole's attempted assassination, seeing as he was the one who told him that the Regent was ready to see him. Londo gently holds G'Kar back as the minister tries to come up with an excuse.

Fortunately for Vitari, Londo is distracted by a hand beckoning him from around a corner. He follows it to the throne room, and decides to enter alone.

It's Regent Virini! And he seems even more crazy than the last time he showed up. He says that the nights are very short these days (which contradicts Londo's recent experience in the Very Long Night of Londo Mollari) and mentions that he's glad that they could get there in time to save him from the assassins. They like him as they say they have much in common with him.

The Regent has a message from them: stop prying into where their ships and supplies are going. He'll understand eventually. But until then, he still has time! Time to run in the sunlight and eat like a fool!

Man, killing Cartagia was supposed to fix this.

When Londo's gone the Regent finds himself meeting a Drakh without his mask on, and gets choked a bit by his Keeper.

So then it's confirmed: the Keepers are controlled by the Drakh, who have secretly taken control of the Centauri Republic. And judging by the flash-forward in War Without End, they're going to be here calling the shots for the next 20 years.

By the way I should mention how great Damien London is as the Regent here. I mean he's always been great, but it's tragic to see such a friendly, cheerful and harmless character now drunk, tormented and half insane because of what the Drakh are doing to him and his world.

ACT FIVE

Act five begins with another shot of the Royal Palace and it's gone back to looking like it did right at the start! Gold spirals, grey spikes.

G'Kar's sleeping on the floor of Londo's bedroom in his clothes, but Londo wakes him up to tell him that they're leaving tomorrow. He's lived in the Royal Palace for most of his life, but tonight for the first time it frightened him.

Londo wonders aloud about what their ships are up to and there's a panning shot going up from his bed, to his ceiling, into space.

And we see that it's the Centauri who are behind the attacks! I mean we kind of knew that already, but it's nice to get it confirmed.

Man, there were probably more people on that Brakiri ship that's exploding than there are in Byron's telepath cult.

The camera then pans back down again to reveal that we're in Byron's bedroom now, and he's risked sleeping with Lyta a second time. The first time led to his telepaths being divided, trapped and hated by the entire known universe, so I guess it can't really get any worse.

Then we get a moment of comedy right at the end that would've made me spit out my drink if I'd been drinking one, as Zack tries addressing them over the speakers, literally saying "Is this thing on?"

Zack orders them to remove the obstructions and surrender, or else he cannot be held responsible for the consequences. But as usual, Byron's going to stick with the plan that's most likely to get him punched. His cult are surrounded by the cops and are basically on a hunger strike to gain sympathy from the people they're blackmailing, and I get the feeling he's mostly disappointed with other people right now.

He doesn't seem entirely convinced that his plan's going to end well however, and asks Lyta to promise him that when he eventually tells her to go she'll leave him behind. She doesn't reply.


CONCLUSION

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When you've got an episode called In the Kingdom of the Blind, the two obvious questions are 'who are the blind?' and 'who is the one-eyed king?' I think there are three candidates here to be the eponymous Kingdom of the Blind: there's Byron's telepath colony, the Interstellar Alliance, and the Centauri Royal Court.

The members of the Interstellar Alliance know that their ships are getting attacked, but they don't know that everyone's ships are getting attacked. Not until the council tells them. Garibaldi's the one with his eye on the overall situation, so is he the king? I think that's a bit of a stretch.

Byron admonishes his followers at one point, literally saying "Is there not one of you who understands?" so there are times he considers himself to be the only one who really sees. His absolute certainty in his beliefs is probably what drew so many people to him and look up to him as a leader. In this episode though it's driving a wedge between his telepaths, as he keeps making really drastic decisions that dig them deeper and deeper into a hole, and people are understandably concerned. So nope I don't think he's the one-eyed king of this story either. It was easier to like the Byron plotline this time though, because he's frustrated enough to drop the parables and just talk straight. He makes bad decision after bad decision but I can see where he's coming from and he does stay true to his own morals even as it leads his people into starvation and beatings.

G'Kar is literally a one-eyed man after Cartagia's torture and he's the one with the ability to put past grievances aside to move forward. I wouldn't say he has any particular authority however. In fact the only ones with any control over any situation in this episode are the Drakh, so is the Regent's Keeper the one eyed king of a blind Royal Court? I think that's the best candidate I've got!

It's kind of frustrating that Londo and G'Kar finish the episode still as clueless about what's going on on Centauri Prime as they were when they arrived, and basically achieve nothing, especially as we have future knowledge that Londo's going to be stuck with one of those Keepers and G'Kar's going to have to strangle him to death. A bit more investigation here and they could've started to do something about it, but instead they just leave. It's not like Londo to abandon his people when there's something dark going on in the Royal Court, and he's like second in command of the whole planet right now! At least the guy who blew up Londo's ride home a couple of episodes ago has been dealt with... assuming that was Vole and not someone else with ambitions.

In fact the episode is a bit frustrating in general, as it's hard to find anyone to root for and it's all seeming hopeless. In previous seasons you could count on Sheridan to take a stand for those in need, in fact he's helped the rogue telepaths before, but here he's immediately yelling that they can't have a homeworld, it's not going to happen! He's not coming up with any clever schemes to defuse the situation, instead he sends in the troops! We've got some future knowledge here as well and we know that this is going to lead to Garibaldi being held hostage by telepaths, so the situation is not going to improve. Everything's going to end badly for this group of oppressed refugees and that sucks! If Byron had skipped the blackmail and printed off just one of those books to give to Delenn things might have gone so much better.

Overall I found this to be an interesting episode that pushes story arcs forward but not a particularly fun or gripping one. It gave me plenty to think about but it's hard to be entertained by something so miserable, with such a crushing sense of inevitable tragedy hanging over it. Plus it feels a bit like the series is repeating itself, with the Drakh using the Centauri to attack ships and spread chaos again, just like the Shadows did. Future Delenn really wasn't lying when she said "The war is never completely won. There are always new battles to be fought against the darkness. Only the names change." Though jms considered this to be the episode where the series finally started picking up momentum again and I'd agree with that.

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COMING EVENTUALLY

Babylon 5 will eventually return with A Tragedy of Telepaths. But next on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm catching a ride with some space cowboys with a heart of gold who aim to misbehave.

Thanks for reading! Comments will be accepted with gratitude.