Babylon 5 3-04: Passing Through Gethsemane

Episode:

48

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

27-Nov-1995

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Welcome to Sci-Fi Adventures, it's like a podcast with pictures! Except when I say that this week I'm talking about Babylon 5's Passing Through Gethesmane, I'm not literally saying it out loud. So if you're wondering, it's pronounced like 'Geth-seh-man-ee', not 'Geth-semain' or 'Get-hess-man-ee' or whatever.

This one's directed by Adam Nimoy who has a pretty big connection to Star Trek... as he's married to Terry Farrell, who played Jadzia Dax! Plus his dad apparently had a role in the Original Series. Nimoy would return to direct the last episode of season three, and he also directed two episodes of The Next Generation: Rascals and Timescape. I've blocked Rascals out of my memory, but Timescape was pretty good I reckon. Lots of screwing around with time.

Speaking of temporal anomalies, Passing Through Gethsemane was intended to air fifth in the season, but the VFX on Voices of Authority required more time so they aired this in its place. Though the Lurker's Guide Master List I've been following says that the season actually works better with the stories this way around so I'll not be watching them out of order this time.

So there'll be no SPOILERS for Voices of Authority here, but I will be spoiling this episode and I'm considering anything that came before it in the series to be fair game as well.

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The episode begins with an unusually long establishing shot of the station, lasting 20 seconds. Maybe to set a mood, maybe because the episode was running short.

But we're eventually looking at Susan Ivanova and guest star Brad Dourif in the zen garden, discussing how doomed someone is. It's like one of those scenes where we're meant to think something important is going on and it turns out to be a game, except here you can guess it's a game and the mystery is what game it is and who's playing.

Ivanova tries to get the monk to make a wager, but he doesn't. Because he's a monk. Also because "Gambling is one of the lesser sins. I've always thought that you're going to sin you may as well go for one of the really big ones." Coming from a monk that's a bit of a weird joke, coming from Brad Dourif it's downright worrying. The guy tends to be typecast as serial killers, or serial killer dolls, or some other representative of evil. In fact a few months later he was playing murderer Lon Suder on Star Trek: Voyager.

It turns out they're talking about a chess game between Brother Theo and Captain Sheridan! So Theo's back then, and he's just beaten perhaps the greatest tactician in the Earth Alliance at chess.

I've never been keen on scenes where the super tactical genius (or android in Star Trek: The Next Generation's case) gets beaten in chess by someone you wouldn't expect, especially if they didn't notice that they were a single move away from checkmate, because my brain's telling me their skills should transfer over to the game and now I'm worried that the galaxy is doomed. Unless they put Brother Theo in command of the White Star that is.

We're told Sheridan's religion here, or lack of it, as it turns out that he believes in a little bit of everything. Theo isn't all that impressed by this, calling him rudderless and cast adrift without compass on an ocean of ecclesiastical possibilities. He may have just been trying to throw him off his game though; he's is a bit of a dick like that.

Theo then goes and forces Edward (Brad Dourif's character) to show off one of his… things that he's made. Brother Theo chose the monks he brought to Babylon 5 very carefully, selecting experts in a range of scientific subjects, and a bloke who makes crystal sculptures.

He's been telling him to sell them as the order could use the money, but Edward's determined to give them away. Whatever they are.

Meanwhile Kosh's ship has returned and Ivanova has gone down to Bay 13 to meet with him. But it turns out he's not on the ship! Even weirder, the design of the docking bay doesn't look drastically different for once!

Sadly the ship model hasn't been given an upgrade either, and the texture on it really doesn't stand up to close ups. Plus I don't like the way they've used a harp in the soundtrack as it's distractingly cheesy.

Speaking of effects not holding up, this shot of Lyta Alexander sliding out of a portal looks very ropey. It's like she's riding an escalator (when really she was on her knees on a dolly). But hey, Lyta's back! We haven't seen her since she killed off the show's replacement telepath seven episodes ago.

Most characters usually get a few minutes to settle in before bad things start happening, but Lyta hasn't been so fortunate so far. In her first story she arrived on a ship and was immediately held hostage in the customs area. In her second story she didn't even make it that far, as she had to be carried off her ship to Medlab on a stretcher. This is her third appearance and... she's actually made it onto the station without incident!  Also it turns out that she actually made it to Vorlon space in the end like she wanted! Good for her.

And Lyta's uneventful arrival is the end of the teaser.

ACT ONE

Every now and again in Babylon 5 you'll get a fuzzy scene with a black border and the frame obviously cropped wrong, then when it cuts away to another shot it's fine. But this time when it cut back to the first angle everyone was in exactly the same position so I couldn't resist putting one shot over the other to show the difference.

Look at how low Lyta's head is in the first shot! This is what you get when you film for widescreen, crop for 4:3, then crop that footage again for widescreen. It apparently had to be done this way because the credits were composited onto the cropped 4:3 footage and they didn't want to recreate them.

But then the composited text appears right over Lyta's face, so I don't even know what's going on.

Anyway, the senior staff are in Sheridan's office listening to Lyta give them some backstory. You may think that this is starting to feel like a replay of Divided Loyalties, but this scene takes place at the start of act one, and in Divided Loyalties it took place at the beginning of act two, so it's totally different.

Plus this time Lyta's got nothing to warn them about, no one's a secret spy, she's just letting them know how she became the only person other than Jack the Ripper to make it to the Vorlon homeworld and that she's working for Ambassador Kosh now. He's finally got his own sidekick! He left it long enough seeing as Na'Toth's gone AWOL and Vir's been shipped to Minbar in the meantime. If Lennier had been killed by that explosion a couple of episodes back, Lyta would be the only ambassadorial aide left on the show.

The crew warn her that the Psi Corps will come after her, but she's under Kosh's protection now so it would be hilarious to see them try something.

Down in the Zocalo, Brother Edward's selling data transfer services when he discovers a black rose on the ground. So that's a bit weird. We learned in Parliament of Dreams that the black rose is a sign you're going to be murdered by the Thenta Makur, the finest guild of assassins on Narn. But I think they've probably got their hands full right now, so this is a bit of a mystery.

Meanwhile Delenn drops by Garibaldi's security office just in time for ISN to come on with news about a serial killer being found guilty. This conveniently gives the episode an opportunity to remind us what death of personality is, with Garibaldi explaining that it involves mindwiping the bad person to remove the personality that did the bad things, then putting in a new personality that'll only do good things. More humane than the death penalty and it doesn't fill prisons up like life sentences do.

Garibaldi's more of an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth kind of guy though, which Delenn believes would leave everyone blind and toothless. Garibaldi gets the last word though, saying "Just the bad guys." You'd think that someone who lived through the Earth-Minbari War would've learned a lesson about the downsides of unrestrained revenge.

There's apparently a lot of Jerry Doyle and Mira Furlan's actual opinions shining through here. Writer jms claims to have overheard Doyle actually saying the 'electric bleachers' line one of the cast's lunch time political discussions.

Here's another interesting fact: death of personality was set up in season one episode The Quality of Mercy, though the serial killer was killed before they could use it. The episode before this, A Day in the Strife, featured Dr Franklin abusing stims which was also seeded in Quality of Mercy. A couple of episodes before that we had Lennier testing a drink for alcohol and Delenn lying to help someone save face, both things also set up in Quality of Mercy. And Quality of Mercy also introduced the healing machine that saved Garibaldi last season, and the free clinic secretly used for the telepath railroad.

I know I've talked about this like twice already, but it's only getting more true. If I had one of those conspiracy theory boards with the pins all over it connected by threads, then a lot of those threads would lead back to Quality of Mercy. It's the secret linchpin of the series.

I'm starting to dread Medlab scenes now that Franklin's an angry addict who keeps yelling at people, but he's mostly just confused right now. Lyta isn't just in good health, she's in better shape than she's been in for the last five years. Turns out that Vorlon doctors are pretty good I guess!

Meanwhile Brother Edward goes to his quarters and finds "DEATH WALKS AMONG YOU" written on the wall in either red paint or blood.

Just like this. And it's dripping everywhere.

I like it when they hold the camera on something for a while like this, as it means I can put a few frames together and make a cleaner screencap out of them, get a bit of the original detail back. Though it's a dark wall with blood on it so there's not really much point this time. It's not very interesting to look at.

Edward thinks it's worth mentioning though, and goes to get Garibaldi. But when they get back to his room the wall is now clean! I bet he regrets not getting a shot of it on his phone now. Fortunately Garibaldi's taking this seriously, and he agrees to put Edward into different quarters while his people go over the place looking for a trace of what he saw or who put it there.

ACT TWO

Over in Green Sector Lyta runs into Londo, who's overjoyed to see her! He'd heard rumours that she was on the station, but wasn't sure he could believe them because Vorlons don't pick up hitch-hikers. No, Londo, it's Vogons that don't pick up hitch-hikers.

It soon becomes obvious that Londo wants something from her, specifically information about what she saw on the Vorlon homeworld, and he's willing to pay a great deal for it. When that offer doesn't work he switches to a threat, saying that he'll let the Psi Corps know about her. This is reminding me of what he was like with the Technomages this time last season.

Fortunately he's sensible enough to back down this time, before Lyta goes through with her threat to implant a nightmare into his mind he could never remove. One that would've had him spend every night for the rest of his life screaming. Though maybe that would've been a nice change from his current recurring nightmare, where the Shadows invade his planet and G'Kar chokes him to death, as at least her implanted nightmare wouldn't come true.

Meanwhile Edward is carrying out his order's primary mission on the station: chatting to aliens about their religions. Delenn and Lennier in this case. This must be the greatest thing to happen to them in the last three years, as they love getting to explain their religion, especially to a true seeker! Wow, I haven't heard that term since season one's Grail.

But once Edward's done with his interview, she asks him a question, about what the defining moment of his belief is, which seems like a bastard of a question to answer. Edward has no trouble though, immediately telling Delenn about the night that Jesus spent alone in the garden at Gethsemane. Jesus knew that they were going to come and crucify him the next day but he chose to stay and sacrifice himself to atone for the sins of others instead of trying to postpone the inevitable. Edward wonders whether he would've had the courage to stay if he was in his place.

Edward hopes to continue their discussion in a few days so he can hear about who this Valen guy is. Hey I could tell him about Valen, I've been paying attention! Valen formed the Grey Council a thousand years ago and had a lot of prophecies about the coming war against the darkness, one of which caused the Minbari to surrender just before their victory during the Earth-Minbari War. He also appreciates it when people put out a plate of food for him during their ritual dinners, just in case he comes back to life and comes by to visit.

Lennier's a Valen fanboy and he's so hyped to talk about him that he can't wait until later, and starts giving us more Valen facts, like how he came from nowhere and was a Minbari not born of Minbari, but Delenn stops him so that Edward can escape and get some rest.

It's never occurred to me until now that the Minbari might be centuries ahead of us in certain ways, but Jesus was around 1200 years before Valen.

Edward heads home to the bad part of town (Brown 17), but on the way he bumps into a mysterious Centauri who we're clearly supposed to notice. Then he hears a scream and some calling for help.

He runs off to help them without hesitation, but along the way he's hit by the sound of drilling, loud enough to make him cover his ears.

Oh, and his message is back again, getting red all over the woodwork. Like Brown sector wasn't bad enough already. I am impressed though, how changing the lighting a bit can make this seem like the miserable slums of the station, despite the fact that the walls are exactly the same as when we were in Green Sector earlier.

Edward hears a voice saying "You killed her." But they must have the wrong guy because they're talking to someone called Charlie. Edward decides he's had enough of this and makes a run for it, dropping his bag along the way, but he realises he's made a wrong turn when he finds himself running through water.

That was actually a clever transition! Edward looks down, sees the water under his feet, then when he looks up he's somewhere entirely different. But the water's still there underneath him when he trips and falls, so it feels almost seamless.

I just wish we got a better view of where he is now. Half because I want to take a decent screencap, half because Babylon 5 occasionally manages to put together a set that's actually pretty convincing, and when it does I want to see it.

See, we're outside now, on Earth, or some colony! Though I feel like that 'Don't Wait' sign in the background should probably be in front of a street or something.

The fact we're outside on a planet on Babylon 5 is amazing enough, but even more amazing is the fact that this was apparently filmed outside their soundstages, for like the second time ever on the series! Sure it was shot in front of the back door, but it still counts as being on location.

Oh this isn't good. I hope Jack the Ripper didn't stowaway on Kosh's shuttle. Though scratch that, as Jack never put a black rose into his victim's mouth. Plus this murder obviously took place in the past some time on some other planet, assuming it's some kind of memory and not just his imagination. Or a time portal.

Anyway he runs the other way from the sirens and escapes back into the the corridor on B5. So that was a bit weird.

ACT THREE

Act three begins with Edward alone in the quarters, flashing back to what he saw in act two, and  thinking about the time he had a stubble goatee and liked to cut roses with a knife.

Brother Theo drops by to see him, as he didn't show up for morning prayer, and Edward tells him everything. He's vague about what he saw, not mentioning the murdered woman, but he does say he saw visions and is being tormented by memories.

Theo tells him it'd be best to leave the memories alone, in a tone that makes it seem like he knows more than he's letting on. Does he know? Are we supposed to have guessed what it is he potentially knows? I've seen the episode before so I can't tell.

Edward can't let it go though, and he seems like he's starting to get an idea of what happened. The moment Theo leaves he goes on his computer and has it cross-reference and analyse all the pieces of his vision. The writing he saw on the wall saying "death walks among you", the woman murdered in the alley, the black roses, and the name Charlie or Charles. He wants it to search criminal records and it tells him it'll take 4 hours to finish the job.

I tried the same search on Google out of curiosity and got 68,800,000 results in 0.6 seconds, the top one being the TV Tropes page for this episode. It's a bit disappointing that I couldn't find my own site there at all, but I suppose that's only to be expected seeing that at the time of writing I'm still writing my review.

Theo is definitely troubled by something, as he asks Sheridan to meet him. In fact he asks him to come all the way down to the zen garden to meet him, meaning that he made Sheridan take a train ride to get here. Which makes the long pause that Theo takes after saying "One of my monks is having bad dreams," even funnier.

Sheridan starts to say that he has his sympathies, but Theo interrupts, saying that his monk believes that hist dreams are memories of terrible things he's done in the past.  He explains that they tend not to do much of a background check when people join his order (they're presumably happy as long as they get a list of their qualifications, including any PHds they have attained). But now he has suspicions and he'd appreciate it if Sheridan uses his resources to find out if they're true or not... before Brother Edward finds out himself. I guess the computer in Theo's quarters has even slower internet than Edward has.

It's funny how concerned Theo is about this, considering that Edward never actually went into any detail about what he saw or remembered. He's such a nice guy that he might be having nightmares about returning a library book late.

Meanwhile Edward's acting weird in hallways again, checking the wall he saw the message on. He mentions to Garibaldi that he's looking for his bag, and that there was a Centauri here who might have seen it, but he's coming off a little bit crazy. Especially considering that the lab couldn't find any trace of blood on his wall. Next they'll be saying they can't find the flooded street with the dead woman in it! Garibaldi's being very sympathetic to the guy though, and comes off like he'd prefer to find some truth in what Edward's saying if he can.

Edward goes back to his quarters and waits for the analysis to finish. Then it does! It's found a match from Earth Colony 3 in the Orion system dated April 3rd, 2251. That's nine years ago! (And three years after the Earth-Minbari War)

Man, who'd live in a colony with a number instead of a name? Uh, Babylon 5 doesn't count.

It's an old ISN logo! We saw the current logo earlier when Garibaldi was watching the news, so we can tell right away this is from a while ago. It's 2260 right now, so if current day Babylon 5 is the sci-fi future of 1995, this news report is from the sci-fi future of 1986.

The report is about the death of personality being carried out against Charles Dexter, the Black Rose Killer. The guy murdered nine people…

… and he looks a lot like Brad Dourif. Man, even when he's playing the nicest man in space he's still playing a serial killer!

Cut to Edward with the exact expression on his face that someone who just found out they were a serial killer would have. This revelation has not brought him joy.

ACT FOUR

The camera spins around Sheridan as he gets confirmation from Garibaldi that Brother Edward really was a serial killer called Charles Dexter, though not in a Star Trek: Discovery way. It takes a full 10 seconds to rotate from the monitor to his reaction.

Seems that mindwiped killers aren't supposed to end up in monasteries, but there was a fire and he found himself out in the world with no memories and an implanted compulsion to serve society. Also they can apparently tell when people have been looking this kind of data up on B5 and what computer they used, so now they know that he knows too.

Brother Theo comes across Edward being creepy in some dark part of DownBelow, though I'm not sure how. I think the monks have just been wandering the corridors looking for him. Unfortunately he's on the wrong side of a fence so they're still separated.

Edward reveals that he's not very impressed with the mindwipe punishment, as it doesn't seem all that merciful and humane from his side of the process. It was pretty traumatic waking up one day and learning that in his past life he wasn't just a sinner, he was someone who went for one of the really big ones.

But his biggest problem is that he can't confess his sins to God if he doesn't know what they are. He believes that he shares the same soul as Charles Dexter and bears the same guilt, no matter what memories have been put into his head. Now he has to find a way to somehow atone for his horrific crimes.

Theo tries to stop him from walking off and doing something stupid, saying that if he doesn't have to be specific when asking God to forgive sins, but the guy's made up his mind.

On the plus side he hasn't reverted and become a psycho murderer again! So there's that. Though he is still going insane... or is he?

The music gets dramatic as Garibaldi runs into Sheridan's office with a bag. In fact he runs right up to where Sheridan is standing, like he knew exactly where he'd be in the room before he even came through the door.

It's Brother Edward's missing bag, and his dictophone comp-pad had accidentally been left running after his meeting with Delenn. All the things Edward had been hearing were recorded on it... they'd been broadcast through the PA system! The lab's finally found traces of the writing on the walls as well, after being so sure that there was nothing there earlier. So it was all real and he didn't imagine any of it! No sign of the water or the murdered body in the street yet, but I'm sure they'll keep looking.

What this means is that someone has come to the station to screw with Brother Edward, someone who knew who he was and wanted revenge. Plus they're probably going to blow something up while they're here.

I mean there's no reason why they'd do that, and there's no evidence that they will, but we've had so many people setting off bombs around the station these last few episodes that it seems like a safe bet.

Okay maybe they don't have a bomb, but one thing they'd definitely need to have is a telepath, and it can't be anyone human as the Psi Corps has rules against using your abilities to drive monks insane. This reminds Garibaldi that Edward mentioned a Centauri had bumped into him in the corridor right before he started seeing visions.

Cut to Brother Edward praying in some gloomy DownBelow church as people start walking in.

I understand that this is supposed to be the garden in Gethsemane for him, and he had to find the courage to stay here and sacrifice himself to atone for Dexter's sins, but... how did he know people were coming for him? How did they know to come here when the monks and security couldn't even find him?

It's the families of the people he murdered, and they've been looking for him for the last nine years to give him a bit of proper justice (ie. murder). But they wanted him to understand why they were coming for him first, so it'd be fresh in his mind when he got to Hell. Man saying that to a monk is even crueller than killing him!

This guy puts shade on his co-conspirators though, saying that they don't have the guts to do the murdering part. But he's a bit of a creepy psycho type himself, so he'll get it done. Though he should probably take a few lunatic acting lessons from Edward first.


Speaking of creepy bastards, they've found the telepath who broke the mindwipe and man is he punchable. He's also entirely uncooperative, despite the fact that a good man's going to die unless he talks.

Unfortunately they can't bring someone else in to scan him, because it's immoral and it's against Psi Corps rules, and no human telepath's going to do it. In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum made that very clear.

Oh, well, never mind then.

They get a bag over the telepath's head and Lyta enters the A plot to steal his dramatic lighting and break into his brain. He's a telepath so he's likely got some defences, but Lyta breaks through them effortlessly. I guess she picked up a bit of an upgrade during her holiday to the Vorlon homeworld.

This whole scene is pretty damn dark. I mean they don't even say thanks to her afterwards, despite the fact she's clearly been affected by what she just went through. In fact the camera lingers on her as the Sheridan and Garibaldi rush off to save Edward. It's interesting that the guy who believes in eye for an eye justice is going to such drastic measures to save a serial killer (and his eyes) from his victims.

Wow, they literally crucified him. Though he's not quite dead yet!

Edward explains that he waited for his murderers to come so he could forgive them for murdering him. Plus he always wanted to know if he had the courage to stay at Gethsemane and now he knows, so he's found some comfort in that. Theo assures him that he can be forgiven for what he's done, grants him a full pardon, and says a few words to their God to make sure he's assigned to the correct afterlife.

Also Zack Allan makes a surprise end of episode appearance to reveal that he's caught the killer!

The guy's got blood on him and doesn't deny what he's done, so there isn't a whole lot of doubt here. But Sheridan stops short of grabbing him and punching him in the face... mostly because Zack pulls him away. He smacks Zack's hands off him and stomps off furious, because he's Tough Sheridan this season.

ACT FIVE

Act five begins a couple of weeks later with Lyta returning to the station. She has a chat with Ivanova which lets us know that the killer's trial finished a few days ago. Then we're back in the zen garden with Brother Theo giving Sheridan that thing Edward made.

Hang on, I think it's supposed to be a cat!

Sheridan mentions that forgiveness is hard and Theo agrees.

Then the guy Sheridan wanted to punch walks in with a new haircut and accent! And a new brain!

Sheridan whips around with a 'I'm gonna punch him' expression on his face, and Theo explains that he asked for him to join the order. He won't be hanging around the people who know what he did though, that's not how the system works thankfully. In fact he's just about to leave for the monastery back home.

First though he wants to shake Sheridan's hand, who recoils in horror, giving Theo a chance to throw Sheridan's words about forgiveness back in his face. I think the scene can be read as Theo trying to help Sheridan through something they've both acknowledged to be difficult without giving the game away to Brother Malcolm over there, but to me it comes across like Theo sprung this surprise on Sheridan to teach him (and us) a lesson. The jerk.

Hopefully the monks back home will be kept utterly clueless about Malcolm's former identity, for their own sakes as much as his. They don't want the monks getting paranoid and wondering if they're all mindwiped serial killers.

And the episode ends with two masks on Kosh's table! I think we know what he's been up to...

... shooting energy beams into Lyta's eyes and mouth. It's funny, sci-fi shows have convinced me that sending energy through the eyes a perfectly reasonably way of getting to and from a person's mind or soul or whatever. But going through the mouth? That's just ridiculous.

I've noticed that they're not going through her brand new gills either, maybe because she needs them free so that she can breathe in this atmosphere. Hope she gets to use them more than G'Kar uses his implanted gills (never). Funny how Franklin was able to detect that her iron deficiency and enlarged appendix have been fixed by the Vorlons earlier, plus he caught the increased levels of oxygen in her blood, but completely missed the slits on either side of her neck. Man, those stims must really be getting to him.


CONCLUSION

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I'd totally forgotten that Lyta Alexander was in this story! The other episodes this season have had multiple threads running at once, but this is so focused on Brother Edward's crisis that it's hard to even call the Lyta scenes a B plot. In fact his story is so out of place in the arc that it feels like it's wandered into the wrong season by mistake, and that's basically what happened. A fan shared a similar story idea on a message board and they had to put the brakes on the episode until jms could meet them and get a signed release, so there was no danger of them being sued. I guess these days the internet's more of an infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters situation, so I don't know if this would happen now.

Passing Through Gethesemane's A plot is about two things: Brother Edward's journey of self discovery, and the ethics of mindwipes as a punishment.

Brother Edward is a one-off guest character, so he had that working against him from the start. You typically want the main characters you've been following for years to drive the action and not just follow it around from a few steps behind. In fact this story reminded me a bit of an inverted Grail at times and even David Warner couldn't save that. But Brad Dourif is a great actor in a good part with a solid script and Adam Nimoy's direction backing him up, and together they kind of pulled it off! Not that a one-off story like this is anything new for television, and the episode does feel like it'd be at home on an anthology series like The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. It's even got the miserable ending! Or I guess you could say it's a happy tale about a man finding out he could be as courageous as the hero of his favourite story: Jesus Christ. Man that's a story you won't see on a Star Trek series.

The other side of the A plot is an examination of the ethics. It asks all kinds of questions, has a few characters share their opinions, but doesn't offer any real answers. Brother Edward was pretty firmly against death of personality, which isn't surprising seeing as he was a gentle monk who learned he'd murdered people. Or at least the former owner of his body had. But if you look at it another way, according to Edward's beliefs Charles Dexter was going nowhere but Hell, and he also believes they share a soul, so really the mindwipe potentially saved Edward. He was given a second shot at reaching Heaven with the deck stacked in his favour, as he couldn't help but do good things.

To be honest I know very little about this subject, but I have I've been watching a lot of The Good Place lately so a question that jumped to mind was if a person is brainwashed to do good, can they claim any credit for the good they do? The fact that Brother Edward was tormented and motivated by his beliefs makes me think that he's grown to be more than his implanted personality, as I doubt his religion was programmed into him (well not during the mindwipe process anyway). Waiting in that church for his killers to arrive didn't serve the community, in fact it led to someone else becoming a murderer, but the religious person he had become felt he had to do it to atone. So maybe by the rules of his faith it was enough?

Brother Malcolm, on the other hand, apparently was programmed to be religious after the mindwipe, seeing as Theo had arranged for him to join his order, and he'll never know that he has a sin to ask forgiveness for. So... is he now screwed? He's the real victim here, as eye for eye justice turned him into both of the people he hated: Charles the remorseless killer and Edward the mindwiped monk, one after another. Though Babylon 5 has been kind of fuzzy on the subject of souls up to this point and the Minbari certainly feel that they have evidence of reincarnation, so the monks' beliefs are definitely not being presented as objective truth. It's just a respectful portrayal of faith by a writer who has none himself.

Even if you take religion out of the equation, the morality of mindwiping still has a lot of unknowns. Like does the previous person wake up with new memories and desires or does a brand new person wake up in a dead person's old body? Is it just an execution except you get a free slave at the end of it, or are they fixing extreme personality issues in a way that lets them have a fresh start? All we know is that Brother Edward's existence brought nothing but joy into the world, his victim's families felt they didn't get justice, and Edward himself was basically destroyed by the truth... after eight or nine years of being absolutely satisfied with his life. It wasn't villagers with pitchforks or a flaw in the technology that caused this tragedy, it was a deliberate act of revenge, and Edward never reverted to his old self.

And the biggest question of all: does being thought provoking make this a better episode? I'm going to say... yes, though I wish I could like the episode more than I do. Not because I thought it was rubbish, but because other people think that it's an absolute classic and it just didn't have that much impact on me. It's proper sci-fi, it's well made, and it has great performances, and I thought it was alright. I wasn't inspired to wonder what I would do in a Gethsemane scenario or anything like that though.

If there's any moral to the story then I guess it's that you should be the kind of person that Garibaldi is and not the kind of person he says he is. He had tests run on the wall even when it seemed like Edward was seeing things and he rushed to save his life even when he knew all about his past as a serial killer. The guy just can't help but do right by the people he knows, even after saying he should've been given the electric chair.

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COMING SOON

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, Babylon 5 season 3 continues with Voices of Authority.

Thank you for the comment you may one day leave me underneath this review.