“Point of No Return”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jim Johnston
Season 3, Episode 9
Production episode 309
Original air date: February 26, 1996
It was the dawn of the third age… Mollari is once again editing Vir’s reports on Minbar so they make the Minbari look inferior to the Centauri, to Vir’s growing frustration. Vir’s pissing and moaning on the subject is interrupted by a call from Centauri Prime: Lady Morella, Emperor Turhan’s third wife, has agreed to meet Mollari on B5. Morella is a seer, and Mollari wants her to do a reading on him—he’s called in many many many favors to get this audience.
B5 is in a state of chaos due to Earth Alliance now being under martial law. Sheridan and Ivanova have a fraught conversation with General O’Reilly on Earth, who says that the Senate has been dissolved by executive order, Hague is missing, and people are being arrested all over the place. O’Reilly also delivers Hague’s last message to Sheridan: “You’re on your own.” Hague is also Earth’s most wanted at this point, as there’s a bulletin out for his arrest.
Sheridan orders the officers in CnC to continue as if things were normal, as no orders have been given to B5 yet. Corwin at one point plaintively asks what they did wrong that things came to this, reminding us that abused children often blame themselves for their parents’ misbehavior.
Allan is told that there’s a NightWatch meeting at 1100 and also not to put that information on a link—and especially not to let Garibaldi know about it. The other security guard also says he should bring some extra PPG ammo, though he doesn’t elaborate…
Garibaldi frees G’Kar early, as he needs his prison guards for station security. G’Kar goes to his quarters to find Ta’Lon waiting for him, hoping to repay his debt to G’Kar. G’Kar invites him in, as they have a great deal of work ahead of them. G’Kar believes that the Narn must unite in the cause of a greater good, and the first step is to aid the humans on the station in their hour of need.
Sheridan speaks to General Smits, who informs him that the Political Office has ordered NightWatch to run all offworld security operations. This means that B5’s security is now in the hands of NightWatch, not Garibaldi, unless the latter joins NightWatch. Smits several times mentions the chain of command and that this comes straight from the Political Office. This will probably be important later.
Garibaldi goes down to security, where Allan and the other guard that J. Michael Straczynski was too damn lazy to name are vetting security personnel, who either join NightWatch or turn in their links and weapons in disgust. Garibaldi tries to appeal to his subordinates to not be insane, which fails, and he’s relieved of duty. So he leaves in a huff. In fact, he leaves in a minute-and–a-huff.
Morella arrives on the station, a bit cranky at the lack of a diplomatic reception from Earth personnel, but Mollari explains that they’re a little busy with the whole martial-law thing. Mollari gives the lady a tour of the station, but she is less than impressed. She views the Centauri alliance with Earth to be a bad sign, and the opposite of what her late husband wanted. She also impatiently instructs Mollari to provide the point of inviting her here, as it was not to give her a tour of the station. The ambassador explains that he wants to know if the fate he has seen for himself is something to embrace or flee. Morella has already seen that Mollari will be important to the Centauri, so she agrees.
The martial law order arrives at B5. Sheridan declares it over the station PA, but does so right after a news story shows Hague’s ship, the EAS Alexander, escaping an ambush by Clark-loyal EarthForce ships at Io. When NightWatch tries to disperse the cheering crowds watching this, a riot breaks out—just as Mollari’s tour of the station arrives at the Zocalo. Vir interpolates himself between a thrown bottle and Morella’s head.
After Sheridan’s reluctant delivery of the martial law order, he and Franklin have a discussion, and when the doctor mentions the chain of command, a light bulb goes off over Sheridan’s head, remembering what Smits said—and that it was an open channel, so the general couldn’t be overt. He has Franklin find Garibaldi, but in person, not over a link, as NightWatch will be monitoring that.
G’Kar goes to CnC and approaches Ivanova with an idea. Soon thereafter, Allan returns to his quarters to find Sheridan, Ivanova, Garibaldi, and G’Kar in his living room.
Morella tends to Vir, over Mollari’s objections that being a nurse is beneath her station—but she insists, as Vir got hurt saving her. At one point, Mollari hands her something and they have a brief flesh-to-flesh contact, during which Morella sees several visions of Mollari’s future, ones we’ve seen before.
Allan tells the NightWatch dude that he’s learned that Sheridan plans to replace the NightWatch-loyal security force with Narns. This is the evidence of conspiring with aliens against Earth that they need to remove Sheridan from command. They gather all of NightWatch’s forces and go to the docking bay where the Narns are supposed to arrive.
Once they gather in the docking bay, Allan says, “Now” into his link and then runs out of the docking bay right before the blast doors close. Sheridan gets on the PA and announces that they’re all under arrest for mutiny. There is a very strict chain of command, and NightWatch has circumvented it: the Political Office has no power to give orders to the military, so by obeying that order, they were in violation of EarthForce regulations.
This is only a stopgap, of course—eventually, a proper order will come through, but communications with Earth are spotty, and it’ll buy them some time, at least.
For his part, Allan rips off his NightWatch armband and tosses it to the deck in disgust.
Franklin points out that they don’t have much of a security force on the station anymore, at which point Garibaldi has G’Kar bring in all the Narns on the station, who are now tasked with security. Sheridan says that it’s always best to use truth in your lie. The only difference was that he wasn’t bringing Narns in from elsewhere, but instead using the Narns on the station, recruited by G’Kar and Ta’Lon.
Morella tells Mollari that he has three chances to avoid his awful fate: to save the eye that does not see, to not kill the one who is already dead, or to submit to his fear. She also reveals that both Mollari and Vir will, in the future, be emperor of the Centauri Republic. Vir laughs hysterically, assuming she’s joking, but she is not. One will become emperor right after the other dies. After Morella’s departure, this leads to some significant tension between Mollari and Vir…
The NightWatch personnel all turn in their links and weapons and are arrested. G’Kar, meanwhile, tells Sheridan the price he demands for supplying Narn security personnel: he wants in. Sheridan says he has to discuss it with the others.
Ivanova informs Sheridan that most of Hague’s support ships have been captured or destroyed. Only the Alexander remains at large.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan is trying to keep it all together on the station, and not entirely succeeding. It also takes him half the episode to crack Smits’ code in his message, even though he gave several very unsubtle hints.
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi is not very happy with having his security force taken away from him by NightWatch. Luckily, he has emergency backup Narns…
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari really really really really wants all his premonitions about the future to be avoidable. Instead, he gets a bunch more of them that he doesn’t like.
Also, Mollari is still editing Vir’s reports on Minbar, as we see in a scene that is so similar to the like scene in “Dust to Dust” that my wife thought we were rewatching that episode instead of watching this one.
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar takes advantage of his early release to make himself indispensable to the station.
Looking ahead. We once again get visions of Mollari’s future as the emperor of the Centauri Republic, and this time ’round we get the added bonus of learning that Vir will also become emperor. We’ll see more of this (including the order in which they serve) in the “War Without End” two-parter later this season, as well as in the series finale, “Sleeping in Light.”
Welcome aboard. The big guest is the late great Majel Barrett, the widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and who played Number One, Christine Chapel, Lwaxana Troi, and the voice of Starfleet computers over the course of five decades for that franchise. She plays Morella.
Vaughn Armstrong is back from “Messages from Earth” for his final appearance as the inexplicably-never-named NightWatch toady. Marshall Teague is back from “A Day in the Strife” as Ta’Lon; he won’t be back until the fifth season’s “The Ragged Edge.” Joshua Cox is back from “Exogenesis” as Corwin; he’ll be back next time in “Severed Dreams.” Maggie Egan’s ISN anchor is back from “Confessions and Lamentations”; she’ll also be back in “Severed Dreams.”
Lewis Arquette (Smits) and Ed Trotta (O’Reilly) play the EarthForce generals.
Trivial matters. J. Michael Straczynski specifically wrote the role of Morella for Majel Barrett. He showed her the script at the Wolf 359 convention in the UK, at which they were both guests, and she accepted the role at the show.
Clark declared martial law on Earth at the end of “Messages from Earth.”
This is the last of a dozen B5 episodes directed by Jim Johnston. He would only work for a few more years before retiring.
Lewis Arquette is the father of a brood of actors: Rosanna, David, Patricia, Richmond, and Alexis Arquette.
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“Greatness is never appreciated in youth, called pride in middle age, dismissed in old age, and reconsidered in death. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst, we do all we can to destroy it.”
— Morella speaking truth.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “There is always choice.” One of the things that’s come out over the years is that Gene Roddenberry’s oft-stated comment that NBC’s objection to the first Star Trek pilot, “The Cage,” was that it was too cerebral has turned out to be a bit of propaganda on the Great Bird’s part. In truth, they had several issues, one of which was that they didn’t much like Majel Barrett, the woman playing Number One, claiming she was too stiff. How much of this was 1964 sexism, and how much was the network not wanting to let Roddenberry give a job to a woman he was sleeping with (while Roddenberry would later marry Barrett, he was, in 1964, married to someone else), is an open question. However, Barrett was also one of the best things about “The Cage,” and one of the tragedies of it being rejected as a pilot was being denied Barrett’s Number One as a regular character. (Though we’ve been given a mulligan on that with Strange New Worlds, the role now played by Rebecca Romijn.) Barrett would go on to play two radically different roles in front of the camera on Trek: the quietly competent Christine Chapel and the outré Lwaxana Troi.
I’m really glad that J. Michael Straczynski recognized this quality, and while his reasons for casting Barrett were probably as much related to getting Trek fans to watch his show as anything, she nonetheless kills it in this episode. Her aristocratic bearing, her cutting through Mollari’s bullshit, her compassion toward Vir, and best of all her sad recitation of what Mollari needs to do to avoid disaster. You can just tell that she knows full well that Mollari won’t do any of these things, and she’s so very disappointed in that.
And that’s just one part of this superb episode. The tension is ratcheted high throughout this episode, with everyone on edge thanks to Clark’s declaration of martial law, and everyone wondering what’s gonna happen next and genuinely not having the first clue.
I absolutely love the use of proper military protocol to allow Sheridan to buy some time, and also defang NightWatch’s influence on his station. Indeed, my only issue with that end of the plot is that Smits’ hints are hilariously unsubtle (Lewis Arquette did everything short of winking at the camera), and it’s frustrating that it took Sheridan that long to figure it out.
Andreas Katsulas continues the evolution of G’Kar, as he uses his status as a leader among the Narns on the station to bring them together to help the station out, thus making themselves useful. On the face of it, this feels like G’Kar is becoming a better person, but in truth, this is still in keeping with his behavior all along, he’s just being less nasty about it. One thing G’Kar has always been is a politician: he knows how to play game, as it were, and in this case, he’s got a goal in mind. He wants to be of value, because his hope is to convert that value into aid for his people down the line. He already knows that Sheridan and Delenn want to help the Narn out as much as is possible, now he just needs them to be indebted to him on top of that.
However, my favorite character in this episode is actually Zack Allan. Jeff Conaway has been magnificently playing Allan’s status as someone betwixt and between. He knows there’s some serious shit going down, but neither side brings him all the way inside. NightWatch is just telling him what to do (whether it was Musante in “Voices of Authority” or Vaughn Armstrong’s frustratingly-never-named security guard here), and Garibaldi isn’t telling him what’s really going on, either. I especially like that you don’t know whose side he’s on until he dives under the door when the NightWatch folks are trapped in the docking bay. And in the end, he still is ambivalent about where he stands, but he knows he won’t stand with the fascists, at least…
Next week: “Severed Dreams.”
” it’s frustrating that it took Sheridan that long to figure it out.”
He’s still having to cope with *waves hands* *all this* and is probably not really good (yet) at doublespeak. He’s been trained to follow orders, especially from the CinC, so it’s natural that someone has to (metaphorically) smack him upside the head to get him to look beyond the surface of the message.
Once again, B5 is just too damn relevant..
Yeah, I have some sympathy for Sheridan missing the subtext in the heat of the moment. I have less sympathy for JMS apparently thinking that we, the viewers, needed Sheridan to rewind and replay the phrase “respect the chain of command” three times for us to get it.
Sheridan had already figured out what he missed after Franklin’s remark. He had no reason to go back and replay the message at all, let alone repeatedly. The idea works just as well if it hadn’t been what the General was suggesting anyway.
“Sheridan had already figured out what he missed after Franklin’s remark. He had no reason to go back and replay the message at all, let alone repeatedly.”
Of course he had reason — to confirm that he was remembering what he thought he remembered. It’s never wise to assume one’s memory is infallible; double-checking is always a good idea, especially for something this important.
I had a bigger problem with the way he kept fast-forwarding or rewinding to exactly the right parts of the message, never overshooting or undershooting. If his memory of the message was imperfect enough that he needed to replay it to make sure, then he wouldn’t have remembered the exact timing of it.
I would agree that it would make sense to verify that if Sheridan needed to know that Smits would back him up if/when he acted. But, in the circumstances, it is unlikely that Smits would be able to do anything that would make any difference anyway. So, in this case, Smits’ true intent is effectively irrelevant. The plan as actually executed doesn’t depend on any support within the EA chain of command and, really, has to assume that none will be available.
On the other hand, Sheridan’s avowed hobby is collecting factoids about conspiracies and other hidden political dramas.
“Hidden in plain sight” should have been in his bailiwick.
Great recap of a great episode.
By the way, your rewatch articles are one of the best things about my Monday, and I look forward to reading them every week.
Thank you so much!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
“the other guard that J. Michael Straczynski was too damn lazy to name”
A different interpretation is that he wants the Nightwatch to be a nameless entity as that makes it scarier and more like Big Brother.
Yeah, but it makes recapping and reviewing the episode so much harder. IT’S ALL ABOUT ME, SAM!!!!!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who’s kidding — mostly
That awkward scene between Londo and Vir just doesn’t ring right to me. While Peter Jurasik is only four years older than Stephen Furst, Londo seems like the better part of a generation (however long that is for Centauri) older than Vir. Plus, Londo knows how he will die. It seems quite natural to assume that Vir will succeed Londo. Maybe that just means I wouldn’t last long at court.
I could have sworn that Ta’Lon was around a lot more than one more episode in Season 5. He must have made a bigger impression that the various incarnations of Na’Toth. I guess it does fit in with G’Kar’s inability to keep an aide.
Putting General Hague aboard the Alexander was either a joke by JMS or an unintentional flub. Fifteen years before this episode first aired, when Ronald Reagan was shot, Secretary of State Alexander Haig declared that he was in control in Washington. His statement was somewhat blown out of proportion, but he framed what he meant very badly. Anyway, that was an incident that immediately leaped to mind hearing “Hague” and then “Alexander.”
Having just rewatched the fifth season recently, Ta’Lon is definitely around for more than one more episode.
JMS has claimed that the Hague/Haig thing may have been a subconscious association (i.e. his own brain playing tricks on him), but wasn’t intentional.
The surprise about Vir becoming Emperor is ‘how does this relatively low-status noble get to be Emperor!’
I agree that Vir feels a generation younger than Londo.
After the initial shock wears off, Londo should be able to put the pieces together here pretty easily. Londo is older and more powerful so presumably he goes first. If he believes in prophecy, then he also “knows” when he’ll die and how (20 years, death by Narn). Vir with twenty more years of experience as Londo’s right hand man becoming emperor tracks, especially since Londo doesn’t have any children to act as rival claimants. He may just not be thinking clearly in the moment.
Well, he does eventually do the third one, right? The one about submitting to his greatest fear, knowing that it will destroy him? He goes to the confrontation with G’Kar, knowing from his own prophetic visions that it will mean his death. (In typical JMS fashion there’s a bunch more to it, of course.)
He also submits to having the Keeper placed on him, knowing what it will do to him. So yes, I think he does fulfill the requirements of the third option and so redeems his soul, at least.
John Sheridan, ever the cunning military strategist. Figuring out a legal way to demilitarize the Nightwatch and temporarily disrupt the crisis is one of the best, most clever twists I’ve seen on this show.
Curent adult me could spot the obviousness in General Smith’s message from a mile away. Teenager me (when this first aired) took…. a while to figure out the hidden meaning. As long as it took for Sheridan for that matter. And I’d argue most TV shows were still fairly blunt back then, and it took a while of back-and-forth to get to the point (and ER was still a new show in terms of accelerated plotting on television).
This aired about two months before her final onscreen Trek appearance as Lwaxana on DS9’s “The Muse” (which was the only bright spot in a forgettable Jake episode). After this, it was mainly voiceover work and that one role on Roddenberry’s Earth the Final Conflict, which she also produced. Morella was a highlight, very distinct from any of her previous roles, and yet playing directly to her strengths as an actor. I’m both glad and relieved that we got to see someone from the Turhan family again after the Emperor’s passing, reminding us that there are still sensible decent voices within the Centauri Republic, while it continuously slides into fascism and invading other planets (and I could easily picture Barrett and Turhan Bey’s characters standing together as a royal couple).
The scene with the civilian bystanders in the Zocalo cheering Hague’s defensive stand against Clark’s forces during ISN’s live broadcast is one of my favorite random moments in the whole show. Rather than just sticking to the main characters, the show allows us to see what it’s like for the regular non-character background folks whose lives are about to be badly affected by a contracting fascist regime. And then the Nightwatch come in to “pacify” things. A vivid example of fascism trying to clamp down on everyone’s personal freedoms. And Sheridan’s look of disgust at seeing the Nightwatch order on his desk is palpable.
G’Kar’s brilliant plan to bring in the Narns into security not only gave him the extra ammo he needed to join the army of light, but it also allowed the show to do something meaningful with the station Narns. Instead of resorting them for – at this point more than established – warmed-over Centauri hate-mongering, the story actually gives them new purpose instead, benefitting station security in many, many ways.
Having been shot in the back not two years before, you can feel the tone of feeling betrayed yet again by his own people in Jerry Doyle’s voice as Garibaldi. His and Zack’s scenes are some of the nastiest, emotionally charged showdowns in the show’s run. And we can’t help but feel sorry for both. Sorry for Garibaldi to be reliving his worst nightmares, and sorry for Zack for him not realizing until it was too late where he’d gotten himself into. It makes that final dive into the closing doorway all the more satisfying, as is Sheridan’s gleeful arrest communiqué to the entrapped fascists – my favorite line is his warning for them not to try and PPG their way out of there. Ricochets kill indeed.
This episode is a great example of what makes B5 so different than nearly all other TV shows, Straczynski looking two and three seasons ahead. My wife and I rewatch the series every decade or so and love to call out “foreshadowing!” every time some small bit shows up that will become important in a later season. Even when he had to retcon come of it, he managed to cover the seams (mostly).
Just to add…
…and Lewis’ father was Cliff Arquette, who, for those of a certain age who are familiar with the Peter Marshall era of “Hollywood Squares”, sat in the bottom left square as Charlie Weaver.
I didn’t find Smits’s hints unsubtle; in fact, I completely misread Smits as a Clark loyalist, or at least an unquestioningly obedient officer.
And yeah, I also found the “rewrite Vir’s report” scene disorienting for its similarity to the previous one. Not a particularly strong way to open the episode.
I admit, I didn’t find Barrett particularly impressive here. She was terrific as Lwaxana Troi, but otherwise I’ve never found her a particularly strong actress. (Sort of the reverse of Walter Koenig, whom I’ve generally found most impressive as an actor when I’ve seen him playing someone other than Chekov.)
When Morella told Londo and Vir that one would follow the other as emperor, I couldn’t help wondering if she’d go on to add something about Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane.
It kind of bugs me that there was a riot of civilians opposing Nightwatch and it was never mentioned afterward. Something that big should’ve had consequences. If not, why even include it, except to ensure the stunt team got their pay for the week? Really, there should be more of this, more focus on the grassroots resistance rather than just the officers and elites.
I can see the average viewer thinking that, because most people don’t realize that civilian authorities aren’t empowered to give orders to low-ranked military personnel. But Sheridan should know that as a matter of course as a captain in EarthForce.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I find it’s forgivable for Sheridan to miss the chain of command implication because he was getting the order from someone in his chain of command. He knew right away there was something he was missing, just not that his superior was passing along an illegal order.
I also momentarily thought I had somehow lut on “Dust to Dust” again because of the opening scene, so your wife is not alone.