lurkers-guide/guide/064

<!-- TITLE And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place -->

<h2><a name="OV">Overview</a></h2>

<blockquote><cite>
Londo uses G'Kar and Vir to gain power in the
Centauri Royal Court.  Sheridan is consumed by his analysis of the Shadows'
strategies.</cite>

<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Turenne,+Louis">Louis Turenne</a> as Brother Theo.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Forward,+William">William Forward</a> as Lord Refa.

</blockquote>

<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/064">8.71</a>

Production number: 320
Original air week: September 8, 1996 (UK)
		   October 14, 1996 (US)
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009OOFK/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: August 12, 2003

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by David Eagle
</pre>

<h3>Watch For</h3>

<ul>
<li>A Centauri guard leaving his post.
<li>@@@904014086 <a href="#NO.jesus">A musical allusion.</a>
</ul>

<p>
<hr size=3>

<h2><a name="BP">Backplot</a></h2>

<ul>

   <li> The Minbari have been constructing a fleet of warships based on the
	White Star design.  They are manned by Rangers.

   <li> Sheridan has stayed away from Delenn up until now because "she has
	enough problems of her own."

   <li> There is a thriving underground on Earth opposing President Clark.

   <li> Na'Toth is believed to have been on Narn at the time of the Centauri
	attack
	(<a href="042.html">"The Long, Twilight Struggle."</a>)

</ul>

<h2><a name="UQ">Unanswered Questions</a></h2>

<ul>

   <li> What does the countdown to Z refer to?
	(See <A href="#AN.z">Analysis</a>)

   <li> Why didn't Delenn inform Sheridan of the fleet of White Star-class
	ships before now?

   <li> How long have the Minbari been building the ships?

   <li> How big is the White Star fleet?

   <li> What will Sheridan use the data crystal given to him by the Reverend
	for?

   <li> Will Virini use the data crystal that Londo gave him? Will it result
	in Refa's family being discredited?

   <li> Will G'Kar respect Londo more now that he has freed the Narns,
	or does he see Londo's ploy as purely self-serving?

   <li>@@@845932780 How did Londo get G'Kar to listen to him long enough to
	describe the plot, and how did he convince G'Kar it wasn't a trick?

   <li>@@@845932842 Virini mentions that Londo's house is gathering a lot
	of funds.  Where is Londo getting the money?

   <li>@@@845972766 Did Refa's telepath find out about any of the activities
	Vir has been involved in, such as his work to help the Narn?

   <li> What is the real reason for the Shadows' attack pattern?

   <li> Is Na'Toth in fact still alive?

</ul>

<h2><a name="AN">Analysis</a></h2>

<ul>
   <li> It seems likely that the "Z Minus..." times refer to Z'ha'dum,
	but they might also refer to a more specific "Zero Hour." The
	question remains, what happens at Z? A Shadow offensive?
	An offensive against Z'ha'dum?  Someone's arrival on or from
	Z'ha'dum?

   <li> G'Kar, in cooperating with Londo and
	killing Refa, has become an unwitting help to Londo in serving the
	Shadows. His desire for revenge against Refa and his need to save a
	small number of his people seems to have served the Shadows' greater
	purposes, at least to the extent that Londo's good fortune is part
	of their plans.

   <li>@@@846748219 G'Kar may have been in on Londo's plan even before he
	left Babylon 5, possibly even before Vir spoke to him.  The story about
	Na'Toth
	was solely intended to lure Refa to Narn; there was no need for Londo
	to deceive G'Kar about his intentions, since G'Kar would almost
	certainly have been willing to risk a trip to Narn for the sake of
	two thousand prisoners.

   <li> If the already-poisoned Refa could be considered "one who is
	already dead," Londo may have just passed by one of his prophesized
	chances for redemption.

   <li> Neroon's statement in "Grey 17 is Missing" that non-Warrior
	Minbari had constructed <i>ships</i> may have been foreshadowing of
	the fleet revelation.

   <li>@@@846749879 Why did Delenn find Sheridan's attempt to think like
	the Shadows so abhorrent?  Are there things about them she knows
	but hasn't revealed yet that would cause that reaction?

   <li>@@@846746161 Delenn said that the first wave of White Star-class ships
	was now ready.  How many waves are planned?

   <li>@@@846747247 Now that Londo thinks he has avenged Adira's death
	(<a href="059.html">"Interludes and Examinations"</a>)
	will he be less eager to continue dealing with the Shadows?  And will
	he ever discover that it was Morden, not Refa, who arranged to have
	her killed?

   <li>@@@846891016 A few readers have commented that since a replica of the
	Centauri throne room is being built on Narn, perhaps that's where
	Sheridan's flashforward
	(<a href="061.html">"War Without End, Part Two"</a>)
	takes place.  That's unlikely, though, since Londo forces Sheridan
	to look out the window and see the devastated landscape of Centauri
	Prime.

</ul>

<h2><a name="NO">Notes</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> The
	<a href="#JS.song">song</a>
	from which the title is derived, "No Hiding Place," refers to the
	Book of Revelation, in which man attempts to hide from the wrath
	of God in mountains and rocks.
	<a href="http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=English&version=NIV&passage=Revelation+6:15-17&search=&showxref=&showfn=">Revelation 6:15-17.</a>

   <li>@@@904014086 <a name="NO.jesus">During Refa's death scene,</a>
	as the vocalist sings, there's a closeup of G'Kar just as she
	sings the name "Jesus."  G'Kar-as-Jesus allusions are found elsewhere
	in the series as well, but this may be the most direct one.

   <li> The mass driver attack affected the climate of Narn much as
	it's theorized a nuclear winter or asteroid/comet strike would
	affect Earth: the particles thrown up by the asteroids used in the
	bombardment have created a layer in Narn's atmosphere blocking out
	the sunlight and altering the heating of the atmosphere,
	which has disrupted the wind patterns on the planet.

   <li>@@@846006824 Refa's death scene may be a homage to "Cabaret," one of
	JMS' favorite films.  See
	<a href="#JS.cabaret">jms speaks.</a>

</ul>

<h2><a name="JS">jms speaks</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> <a name="JS.song"><em>Where does the title come from?</em></a><br>
	It's from an old gospel song/spiritual.

<P>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Did Harlan Ellison suggest it?</em><br>
	No, as a rule, Harlan doesn't suggest titles; "Rock" came from the 
	quote from the Bible, which was later made into a gospel song, used in
	the show.  So it's a real song, though I did write 2 for "Walkabout."

<p>
   <li>@@@865189277 Why's it called that?  Because it's quite appropos.
	How do we fit it? Not a big deal.  Longest title up to now was one I did
	for MURDER, SHE WROTE, a quote from Moby Dick, "To The Last Shall I
	Grapple With Thee."

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 The song in "Rock" is an old gospel song.  I've always
	had a soft spot
	for old gospel songs and spirituals because of their wonderful use of
	language and imagery, and you can dance to 'em.  Not that I dance, but
	the theory is there, at least.

<p>
   <li>@@@844403652 My own take on "And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place,"
	which airs tomorrow in the UK...I like it.  The Brother Theo stuff is a
	tad stilted in a couple of places, but it's only a couple of minutes,
	and the rest works real well.  It's a very subversive episode in its
	way, and a part of it still creeps me out.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 I like symmetry...both as a word, and as a concept.
	It plays into the show a lot, showing the balance that the universe
	tends to impose whether we like it or not.  What goes around, comes
	around.

<p>
   <li>@@@864607027 <em>Some of the Narn buildings looked like Hiroshima after
	the atomic bomb.  Intentional?</em><br>
	Yes, there was some element of that.  It's not a moral judgment thing,
	but a referential point.  As for Narn architecture overall, I told them
	I wanted sort of an alien culture as the Soviet Union might've designed
	it....  everything tending toward the blocky, the functional, less
	aesthetic than you would find on Minbar.  This is a culture that has
	crawled up from war, and functionality is more important.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Was there a Narn standing in the queue of
	telepaths?</em><br>
	Not in the queue, but providing security within the station... remember,
	many of the Narns have joined B5 security.

<P>
   <li>@@@843940517 We're generally very careful about what aliens show up
	in what scenes.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Was the fact that the countdown started at
	14 days an intentional reference to the season finale being two
	weeks later?</em><br>
	Somewhat intentional; in the long run, the show will end up either 
	aired daily, or stripped weekly, so either way the 14 days until climax 
	works well, as it does now for the UK.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 The countdown aspect does add a lot to this, gives it a
	forward momentum and a kind of subliminal ominousness.  And as for the
	Refa situation presented in counterpoint...I love how that came out. 
	It's almost subversive in a way...just gives me the quiet chills.

<p>
   <li>@@@845932780 Re: the rabbi singing the gospel song...a couple of
	points.  First, if you're visiting someone's church, it's only
	considered polite behavior to go along with what's there.  I have a
	number of Catholic friends who would sometimes go to temple with Jewish
	friends...and when it came time to sing, would do so.  Why should it
	not work the other way around?

	<p>
	Second, as I seem to recall, the line about "no hiding place" is taken
	from the Old Testament, which forms a substantial portion of Judaic
	teachings (but not the whole of it, a mistake many make).  Yes, there's
	some later stuff worked in, but the heart of it is from a common ground.

<p>
   <li>@@@845932780 Waitaminnit...I retract part two of my reply...I think I
	just stooged the origins of that song.

	<p>
	(whaddyawant from me, I just spent 12 hours putting my hard drive back
	together....)

<p>
   <li> <em>About the juxtaposition of Refa's fate with the song</em><br>
	It's comical...and it ain't comical...it's designed to elicit
	conflicting emotions, between what you *are* feeling, what you *should*
	be feeling, and so on.  I like uneasy laughter....

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 That was one of those scenes which, when you do it,
	you know it's gonna stay around for a while....

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 When I thought of that one, I just sat there and
	grinned.  It's so perverse, but yet so appropriate, all at the same
	time.  Just to further add a bit of creepiness to it, in the sound mix I
	had the editors verb up the music toward the fade out, so it had a
	slightly distorted edge to it.  The details are everything in a scene
	like that.

<p>
   <li>@@@845974553 Vir has to be *very* careful...he's on the razor's edge
	these days.  The higher up you go, the more you know, the higher the
	stakes and the greater the risk of choosing badly.

	<p>
	Re: "funny yet chilling," those are the scenes I love most...the
	ones where you're utterly conflicted, it's grotesque or frightening on
	the one hand, and comic or absurd on the other.  It leaves you
	uncertain which way to jump emotionally, and I love that
	feeling...caught betwixt and between.

<p>
   <li>@@@846006824 <em><a name="JS.cabaret">Originally in response to</a>
	<a href="054.html">"Severed Dreams."</a>
	"Cabaret" is one of JMS' favorite movies.</em><br>
	In a sense, it's going from one emotion or thematic
	element to a very different, but equally strong one, either as bookends
	or through intercutting. Going from the high of the victory, to the
	sudden shot of the dead troops, is thematic counterpoint.

	<p>
	Here's another...in "Cabaret" you've got a scene where the
	performers in the Cabaret are doing the sort of German dance where you
	slap your knees and thighs and chest...and they take it a bit further,
	slapping one another, it's all for comic effect...but during this,
	you're intercutting the owner of the cabaret being beaten to within an
	inch of his life by some Brownshirts outside.  You go from comic to
	brutal and back, with the result that the happy little dance suddenly
	takes on ugly characteristics, and the beating takes on the sense that
	the participants are having a sick kind of fun, that it's all just
	another kind of dance, a ritual.

	<p>
	That's what you have to look at as a writer...how this scene
	works, and how it interacts with the scenes in front, behind and
	"beside" it (for things happening simultaneously).  Sometimes, with the
	proper counterpoint, you can add whole new levels of meaning to a
	scene, or make the scene much stronger than it would've been on its
	own.

<p>
   <li>@@@846748723 <em>That was an elaborate scheme if the goal was simply
	to have Refa killed.</em><br>
	Londo points out that he could easily
	have killed Refa elsewhere...as he says, the point was to do it on Narn
	so that he could dishonor his house back home.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Was William Forward the one who said, "Why me?" as
	mentioned in one of your Usenet messages?</em><br>
	Yes, it was with the actor who plays Refa that I had that conversation.
	He was initially bummed out, figured I was doing what I was doing in
	"Rock" because I wasn't happy with his performance or something. So I
	pulled him aside and explained the situation, and indicated that we'd
	likely use him again as an alien character, under prosthetics.  If he
	hadn't done such a good job, this wouldn't have happened, because no one
	would've cared about the character.

<P>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>You said a major character would die in season 3.
	Refa wasn't major.</em><br>
	Well, given that Refa has been around for two years, and Keffer was 
	only in a few in one season, I'd hardly put them in the same league. 
	Part of all this is how you define "major."  Usually, I've refrained
	from using that term...I would say someone you've seen since the first
	year, for instance, or an important character.

	<p>
	Certainly I was primarily referring to Kosh in my original note about
	all this...but a lot of folks took that and extended it past that point,
	which I just let go rather than correct, because the show should do any
	correcting.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 I think the message of mine you're referring to are the
	ones I wrote with Kosh in mind, not Refa.  But since I obviously
	couldn't say that at the time, some of it sloshed over into how folks
	viewed later episodes.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Will 500 Narns die in retaliation?</em><br>
	Except, of course, that going on at length about the death of Refa 
	would require revealing what he was doing there...and I doubt very much
	that the Royal Court would like even the suspicion that one of its own
	was making deals with the Narns to become public knowledge...so it's
	extremely unlikely that there would be any retribution.  This is one the
	Centauri would prefer to sweep under the rug, I think.

<p>
   <li>@@@845974432 <em>Why didn't Refa's allies help him?</em><br>
	Bear in mind that all of Refa's people were *back on Centauri
	Prime*. He didn't bring them with him; to send word to Centauri Prime
	to bring them all the way out here, then on to Narn, would double the
	time required to get there, and by then the "rescue" would've been
	over.  That was part of Londo's scheme...he wouldn't have much time, he
	had to get in and get out.  Refa only brought a few with him, and they
	were needed to watch Londo and guard Vir.

	<p>
	As for the Centauri back home...you proceed from the assumption
	that all Centauri act as one.  I'm basing this somewhat on the early
	Roman civilization and government, where one side would sell out the
	other, arrange for deaths and murders, turn people over to their hated
	enemies as long as it advanced their position, or if they were allied
	with persons of power on a particular side.  Why did the Roman guards
	escorting Tiberius (a much less worthy emperor) kill the heir to the
	throne in "I, Claudius" (a much better leader, and well liked among the
	military)?  Because they were told to do so.

	<p>
	SF in TV has the tendency to portray aliens as monolithic...they
	put the good of their species as a whole above everything else.  Some
	do that; some do not.  Just as with humans.

<p>
   <li>@@@864607027 Refa had a flashlight, not a gun.

<p>
   <li>@@@864607027 Refa was his last name/family name.

<p>
   <li>@@@864607027 <em>Minister Virini looked disappointed by the
	outcome.</em><br>
	Not sure it was so much a look of disappointment as..."Okay, I know
	something here isn't on the level...but he's got it very well
	surrounded...and is it worth sticking out my neck to get into this?"

<p>
   <li>@@@848346057 <em>Why wasn't Na'Toth replaced?</em><br>
	I briefly considered giving G'Kar a second, after the revolving door
	Na'Toths, but as I looked at it...as you say, the others all DO have one
	like that, and I figured it might be good to have someone *without*
	that...especially after the fall of Narn, when the staff would be
	canceled.  And there's something I like about G'Kar being alone in all
	this.  Anyway, it varies the mix a bit.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Why did G'Kar help Londo?</em><br>
	Well, you combine the release of 2,000 prisoners, many of whom were
	likely resistance fighters, and the payback to one who orchestrated the 
	bombing of Narn, and that adds up to a pretty good incentive to get Refa
	even WITHOUT Londo's presence in the deal.

<p>
   <li>@@@845974106 I wouldn't say they hate one another any less now than
	before; and yes, he would've sent word to G'Kar and arranged a private
	meeting, just the two of them.

<p>
   <li>@@@864607027 These two characters, Londo and G'Kar, are linked at
	the hips. That is their beauty and their tragedy.  And you will see
	some new colors to this in the first part of season 4.  This story is
	as much about them as anyone else.

<p>
   <li>@@@846748219 I think that if Londo sent word via the Babcom unit
	that he wanted a one-to-one with G'Kar, and that thousands of Narn lives
	were on the line, he would come.  G'Kar has nothing to fear from Londo
	as long as he's on B5...and if anything, I think he'd be amused if Londo
	did try anything.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Wayne Alexander was listed as playing G'Dan.  Which
	one was he?</em><br>
	He was the Narn who first met G'Kar on their homeworld; the only one
	with any lines.

	<p>
	Wayne has a considerably larger role in year 4 as an alien named 
	Lorien.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Why doesn't Vir leave Londo now?</em><br>
	I don't know if Vir really has anywhere else to go....

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>John and Delenn kissing in front of a big group of
	warships seemed a little odd.</em><br>
	I guess it's really a matter of perspective.  It depends on what the
	fleet is *there* for, as well.

<p>
   <li>@@@843940517 <em>Why didn't Delenn mention the fleet before?</em><br>
	Well, as she indicates, she didn't *have* them before.

<P>
   <li>@@@845932780 I don't think she was so much withholding the
	information, as they just weren't ready yet, and the need for them
	wasn't there yet.

</ul>

<p>
Originally compiled by Jason Snell.