", and almost half the cast had been replaced.
Straczynski had to re-introduce his world. This time he skipped most of the details, and only three new characters appear – Susan Ivanova, Talia Winters and Vir Cotto, the first of an eventually long and distinguished line of ambassadorial sidekicks.
It’s still an almost uncomfortably dense episode, especially after you’ve seen the rest of the series. Many seemingly innocent lines prove to have double meanings.
Sinclair comments that the best way to understand a man is "to fight him, to make him angry" – and isn’t that the Shadows’ philosophy in a nutshell? What are we to make of Ivanova’s assessment that Talia Winters is "as much a victim as my mother" in the light of "Divided Loyalties"?
Tea for two
Meanwhile, the complicated tragedy of Londo and G’Kar lurches into motion. The story of Londo’s dream is one end of a 20-year-long string that ties the whole epic together, while Londo’s abortive attempt to kill G’Kar foreshadows the way the Centauri turn on the Narn.
G’Kar tells Londo, "The wheel turns, does it not?" and so it does. A year and a half later, Sheridan will stop G’Kar from trying to kill Londo, and by the fourth season G’Kar and Londo will find their relationship going in yet another direction they would never have expected.
G’Kar and Londo aren’t the only reversing relationships introduced here. Susan’s initial animosity to Talia sets up Susan’s dark secret and the sinister nature of the Psi Corps, while Vir and Londo’s relationship proves to be much more important than it seems.
(Alas, Vir is so broadly played here -- thanks mostly to the director, who nearly derailed the series with his approach to the early episodes -- that fans howled for his blood after this episode. Straczynski promised Vir would get better, though, and he became a fan favorite the day he told Mr. Morden exactly what he wanted.)
It’s a busy episode. Perhaps the most telling measurement of how much is happening beneath the surface is that, knowing what we know about the future, the battle with the raiders is now the quietest part of the story -- almost filler.
COMING UP NEXT
John Edward communicates with the dead – and so does the "Soul Hunter".
Return with us now to those innocent days when Babylon 5 was new, G'Kar was an antagonistic character and nobody knew what a Shadow was. Let the
advertisement
