lurkers-guide/guide/076

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

<blockquote><cite>
Franklin and Marcus arrive on Mars to begin their undercover mission.
Sheridan confronts Garibaldi about his behavior.
</cite>

<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Schneider,+Mark">Mark Schneider</a> as Wade.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Scott,+Donovan">Donovan Scott</a> as Captain Jack.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Landey,+Clayton">Clayton Landey</a> as Number Two.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Monaghan,+Marjorie">Marjorie Monaghan</a> as Number One.
</blockquote>

<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/076">7.73</a>

Production number: 410
Original air week: April 21, 1997
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DGBEY/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: January 6, 2004

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jesus Trevino
</pre>

<p>
<hr size=3>

<h2><a name="BP">Plot Points</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li>@@@862331870 Mars has been subjected to a news blackout and an embargo
	for at least as long as Babylon 5 has, likely as far back as their
	refusal to submit to martial law in
	<a href="054.html">"Severed Dreams."</a>
	People on Mars have heard little more than vague rumors about the
	Shadow War.  They also appear to know nothing about the Rangers.

   <li>@@@861606952 Someone has begun planting Keepers
	(<a href="061.html">"War Without End, Part Two"</a>)
	on members of the Earth resistance movement with the apparent intent of
	wiping it out.

   <li>@@@861606952 A Keeper can be partially removed, but portions remain
	embedded in the victim, and the rest of the organism grows back,
	sometimes within hours.

   <li>@@@861606952 Garibaldi has pledged to support a group that claims to
	feel the Army of Light has become a cult of personality centered
	on Sheridan, and that this will ultimately damage the cause.
	Garibaldi feels the same way, he says, and that's why he said what
	he did during the ISN interview.

   <li>@@@861658172 Ivanova has begun setting up amnesty deals with smugglers
	to keep the station supplied with food and spare parts.

</ul>

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

   <li>@@@861606952 Who planted the Keeper on Captain Jack?

   <li>@@@861606952 How did they know about his involvement with the
	resistance?

   <li>@@@861606952 Who are the people Garibaldi promised to help?

   <li>@@@861606952 What was the large ship being escorted toward Mars by
	a group of Starfuries?

   <li>@@@861606952 "Woo hoo?"

</ul>

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

   <li>@@@861606952 The head of the group that recruited Garibaldi may have
	betrayed his true intentions with a slip of the tongue.  When he
	first spoke to Garibaldi, he said Sheridan's actions weren't good
	for Earth, weren't good for business, and weren't good for the
	President -- not something likely to come from the mouth of someone
	opposed to Clark.

<p>
   <li>@@@861954426 The second time Garibaldi met with the mysterious group,
	the leader made a point of saying, "Are you with us?" several times.
	Could that be some kind of key phrase related to whatever was done
	to Garibaldi while he was captured
	(<a href="068.html">"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"</a>)

<p>
   <li>@@@861982136 That phrase, or one like it, was used by someone else:
	Sheridan, who shouted, "Are you with me?" to the assembled crowd in
	<a href="069.html">"The Summoning."</a>

<p>
   <li>@@@862331634 If "Are you with us?" was indeed a key phrase, Sheridan
	inadvertently foreshadowed it earlier in the episode, when he told
	Delenn that he could make Garibaldi come around "if I could just find
	the right words."

<p>
   <li>@@@861954426 Since Garibaldi knows the group is planning to move
	against Sheridan at some point (they told him as much,) perhaps his
	acceptance of their offer is, instead of a rejection of Sheridan,
	actually part of a plan to root out possible threats to Babylon 5's
	security.  If so, a natural question is, does Sheridan know about
	that plan, or is it Garibaldi's doing?  Was the confrontation
	between Sheridan and Garibaldi just a premeditated ploy to help
	Garibaldi gain the trust of the new group?  Sheridan's conversation
	with Delenn after the first confrontation argues against that idea,
	but it's still plausible.

<p>
   <li>@@@862331634 It's also possible the Brakiri woman was a setup, sent by
	the group to fawn over Sheridan at just the right time and push
	Garibaldi over the edge.

<p>
   <li>@@@862331634 Garibaldi's rejection of Sheridan parallels Judas'
	rejection of Jesus.  Both were part of their leader's inner circle.
	Sheridan's warning to Garibaldi to stop undermining him can be read
	as analogous to Jesus' warning to Judas at the Last Supper
	(<a href="http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=English&version=KJV&passage=Matthew+26:24">Matthew 26:24</a>:
	"woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good
	for that man if he had not been born.")  
	<a href="http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?language=English&version=KJV&passage=John+13:2">John 13:2</a>
	says the Devil caused Judas to betray Jesus; Garibaldi has also
	been influenced in some way, in his case by Psi Corps
	(<a href="068.html">"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"</a>)

	<p>
	Many scholarly analyses ascribe motives similar to Garibaldi's to
	Judas.  Tim Rice's lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's
	"Jesus Christ Superstar," while perhaps not scholarly, put it
	succinctly:

	<blockquote>
	My mind is clearer now.<br>
	At last all too well I can see where we all soon will be.<br>
	If you strip away the myth from the man,<br>
	You will see where we all soon will be.<br>
	Jesus!<br>
	You've started to believe<br>
	The things they say of you.<br>
	You really do believe<br>
	This talk of God is true.<br>
	And all the good you've done<br>
	Will soon get swept away.<br>
	You've begun to matter more than the things you say.
	</blockquote>

<p>
   <li>@@@864846302 When Marcus discovered Jack aboard the transport ship,
	he had his arm around Jack's neck.  Why didn't he feel the Keeper?
	Does it have some way of hiding itself, or was it simply that Jack
	was wearing heavy clothing to cover his lower neck, and Marcus
	couldn't feel anything through the fabric?

</ul>

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

   <li>@@@862818754 Marcus' comment about hating parasites is probably a
	reference to
	<a href="051.html">"Exogenesis,"</a>
	in which his friend Duncan was taken over by an alien parasite.

   <li>@@@862817570 Minbari have 52 rituals related to relationships.
	Sheridan and Delenn have now completed the first three.  One is the
	female watching the male for three nights, and the third (according to
	Delenn, who called it the Third Movement of Love and Mutual
	Understanding) is the mutual exploration of pleasure centers.

   <li>@@@862332082 Garibaldi's hair loss is due to something a smuggler brought
	aboard the station.

   <li>@@@862188956 The Pope is a woman in 2261, according to Garibaldi.
	During his second confrontation with Sheridan, he said, "He's not
	the Pope.  He doesn't look anything like her."

   <li>@@@861606952 The subcommander and head of the resistance cell called
	themselves "Number Two" and "Number One," a nod to the cult classic
	"The Prisoner."  Another reference to "Number One" can be found in
	<a href="013.html">"Signs and Portents."</a>

   <li>@@@862332082 The name "Captain Jack" is a nod to the Billy Joel song
	of the same name.

   <li>@@@866747394 A slight glitch: When Captain Jack ripped open the
	insta-heat pack, Franklin said, "That's beef and potatoes."  But his
	lips don't match those words; apparently the original line was
	something different.

   <li>@@@867570393 Marcus and Franklin were playing "I Spy" when they
	discovered a spy.

</ul>

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

   <li>@@@851545085 <em>Is B5 about the Shadow War?</em><br>
	Not just that, but events back on Earth, Mars and elsewhere that
	are either not touched by the shadow war, or barely touched by it.  (In
	one upcoming episode, where a couple of our characters have gone to
	Mars, they find that very few on Mars know anything even *happened*.)

<p>
   <li>@@@856689448 Not everyone back home even knows
	there *was* a war.  Which our characters will find rather annoying....

<p>
   <li>@@@862818920 <em>About the Pope</em><br>
	Yeah, you heard the "her" line.  Got a fair amount of flack for
	that one, btw.

	<p>
	And it's Woo Hoo.

	<p>
	If Yahoo wants a reference they should call me....

<p>
   <li>@@@863020881 From some extremist Catholics...and also got some flack from
	Born Again Rightists over my comments in TV Guide about being an
	atheist.

<p>
   <li>@@@862989835 I don't think Earthforce cares about sexual orientation; the
	reason we just set it out there without comment is that, having come
	through the realization of other non-human races...a little thing like
	sexual orientation, nobody even cares about anymore.  It ain't an
	issue.

<p>
   <li>@@@864920072 <em>Why didn't Ivanova ask Lyta to oversee her
	negotiations with the smugglers?</em><br>
	Because telepaths only function in very limited ways due to
	privacy laws.  You couldn't just use them broad-based as lie detectors
	in the way you suggest, because it first requires getting the
	*permission* of those involved, and you can be reasonably sure that
	smugglers aren't going to want people poking around in their heads;
	second, there was a large group there, and a midrange teep can usually
	handle only one or at most two people with any degree of accuracy; it
	goes down dramatically after that.

	<p>
	I specifically set up rules for telepaths to avoid letting them
	become the deus ex machina, the easy solution to any problem.

</ul>