Someone's trying to blow up the station, but where's Garibaldi? Running from security and trying to find the real villains.

Written by Marc Scott Zircee
Directed by Jim Johnston

Elaine Thomas - Lianna Kemmer
Tom Donaldson - Cutter

* General Netter is named after (but not played by) Executive Producer Douglas Netter. Look for the real Netter down the road as the face of President Santiago in "Midnight on the Firing Line" and "Chrysalis".

* The name of the place is . . . "Happy Daze". In the SCIFI Channel's widescreen edition, we can see the entire word "Happy" in neon just as Garibaldi takes his first sip at the bar.

Comics are fond of using an issue to showcase a character's background and history. J. Michael Straczynski loves comics. Let's call this episode "The Secret Origin of Michael Garibaldi".

We learn why Garibaldi's past is so clouded, as well as the potential danger his drinking presents to both him and the station.

Major Lianna Kemmer is the perfect vehicle for this story. She ties together the mistakes of Garibaldi's drunken past and his new sense of responsibility, heightened all the more by President Santiago's arrival at the station.

Kemmer not only represents past mistakes and present redemption, she acts with authority, challenging Sinclair and even holding her own with Ivanova. For all that she has been through, she's a fine officer.

And then Garibaldi clouds her judgment. When Sinclair points out at the end of the episode that she's looking for blood, not justice, he's right, and she admits it.

In this way, Garibaldi has become the vehicle of her redemption. By acknowledging Kemmer's human side -- the side that makes mistakes -- he makes it possible for her to learn, and be forgiven.

When Kemmer tells Garibaldi that President Santiago likes Babylon 5, Garibaldi replies, "Then make sure nothing happens to him. We need all the friends we can get." The episode's lesson on redemption allows us to hope that all will be well.

Within months, however, Santiago dies when Earthforce One explodes in "Chrysalis". Garibaldi will once again the target of an attack -- this time betrayed by one of his own men -- and this time cannot prevent the tragedy to come.

Garibaldi himself crawls back into the bottle for much of the first part of Babylon 5's fifth season, culminating in "The Wheel of Fire". Garibaldi uses alcohol to numb the pain of Bester's manipulations, not seeing how this decision will impact the new Interstellar Alliance.

While many of these events are left to the future, the show is laying their foundations here, at the very beginning.

"By Any Means Necessary"

Dock work over 'til
safer conditions for all --
big Sinclair headache.