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Skriven 2007-08-18 16:01:54 av jphalt@aol.com (3842.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: The Fall of Centauri Prime: my review
=============================================
The fifth season reaches its wrenching climax, as Londo meets his
horrible destiny.


THE PLOT

We pick up where "Movements of Fire and Shadow" left off. The Regent
has de-activated the defense grid surrounding Centauri Prime, and has
sent the Centauri ships away... just in time for the Narn and Drazi
fleets to arrive with a merciless onslaught that devastates the rich
world in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. In horror, Londo demands
that the Regent order a surrender.

That is when the Regent finally reveals who it is pulling his puppet
strings. At long last, Londo comes face-to-face with the Drakh, and
learns of the Keeper. It is put to him that he will be controlled by a
Keeper. If he refuses, the Centauri capital will be destroyed.

Londo has come to the end of his journey. To save his people, he
becomes the emperor - and enslaves himself to the Drakh for life...


THE GOOD

Londo Mollari has always carried a sense of tragedy about him. Even in
"The Gathering," when he was "Londo the Buffoon," his joy was tinged
with sadness over the decay of his empire. Then, in "Midnight on the
Firing Line," he revealed more as he told Sinclair about his prophetic
dream - his death (which we actually saw in "War Without End"), with
his hands wrapped around G'Kar's throat as G'Kar's were wrapped around
his. At that time, he and G'Kar were mortal enemies; devoid of
context, the dream image was simply more proof that lovable Londo and
(then-) despicable G'Kar would remain enemies forever.

As the arc has unfolded, Londo's story - along with G'Kar's - has
taken unexpected turns and gained a richness and resonance that no
other strand of the series has ever quite achieved. We have seen Londo
strong, we have seen him weak, we have seen him calm and angry,
manipulating and manipulating. His relationship with G'Kar has become
similarly rich and complex. By this point, there is no question that
they have become closer to each other than most people ever get to
another person. For all the hyper-theatricality of his manner and
speech, Londo is entirely real to the viewer...

Which makes his tragedy absolutely rending.

Londo's finest moment is his last moment as a free man. Having
realized that there is only one way to save his people, he says his
good-byes to G'Kar in an absolutely splendid scene (more on which
later). Then he goes to the Drakh and announces that he is ready. He
doffs his jacket and stands, proud and erect, even as his eyes reflect
revulsion at what he is submitting to. The Drakh produces the Keeper
from his own flesh, wrenching it off, mucus dripping from the shell as
he drops it to the floor. Londo never shudders, never closes his eyes,
never shows weakness or fear, even as the Keeper climbs his body and
extends its spidery legs around him in a horrifying embrace. Even when
it finally pierces his flesh to join with him, the only reaction Londo
shows is a tight clenching of his fist. Londo has never seemed
stronger than at this moment, not even in "Into the Fire."

Of course, Londo's protective instincts are in full gear. He cannot go
against the Keeper, but the Regent gave him one piece of wonderful
insight: Most of the time, he can do whatever he pleases, as long as
it doesn't go against the orders of the Drakh. Londo proceeds to push
those he cares about away. When Vir barges in on Londo, the new
Emperor realizes that if the Keeper had been visible, Vir would have
seen it... thus sealing Vir's own death at the hands of the Drakh. So
Londo rages at him, making sure he understands that he must never
enter unannounced. He then officially announces Vir's appointment as
Ambassador to Babylon 5 to Sheridan, telling Vir that Centauri Prime
is no place for him. He's keeping Vir away from Centauri, away from
the Drakh, keeping him someplace where Vir will be safe, and where Vir
might even be able to do some good. The Keeper does not stop him,
because this does not go against the orders of the Drakh. Already,
Londo takes one step that will eventually help free his people.

For all of this, Londo is now a slave. The Drakh want Centauri Prime
isolated so that they can work in secret. Londo proceeds to alienate
Sheridan and Delenn, declare Centauri Prime's severance from the
Alliance, and declare a new isolationist policy. He has no choice in
this. His address to his people is designed to play on their
resentment against the Alliance, when it would be far better to calm
them down. His orders to ring the chimes for a full day and night, one
toll for every Centauri killed in the assault, are tailored to remind
the people of those lost, and to make them angrier than they already
are. Ultimately, none of this serves the rebuilding of Centauri Prime.
It does not serve the Centauri at all. It serves the Drakh.

The Drakh, former servants of the Shadows, have become the new
masters. Their story is a tragedy, too, if one really stops to think
about it. Their only role, their sole identity, was in serving their
masters. Then their masters went away. Lorien and Sheridan convinced
the Vorlons and the Shadows to leave... but they didn't stop to take
their creations with them. Now the Drakh have no purpose. "A shadow of
a shadow," the Drakh says to describe his people to Londo. Their only
remaining purpose is revenge. Revenge against Londo, who - in what,
ironically, was his most obviously heroic moment - destroyed all the
Shadows on Centauri Prime. Then, acting quietly on the Centauri
homeworld, they will get revenge against the Alliance. The stage is
thus neatly set for "Crusade's" arc (a story sadly left unfinished. I
can't speak for anyone else, but if a few future "Lost Tales" tackled
some of that dangling thread, it wouldn't go amiss by me...).

Now slave to the shadows of the Shadows, Londo looks back on the path
that brought him here. A very well-chosen selection of flashbacks
shows glimpses of Londo's entire arc. The drunken buffoon, a joke to
most but full of life and laughter; the haunted rising star, realizing
too late, as G'Kar buys him a drink, that he has started a war that
might have been avoided; the horrified pawn in a game that's gotten
away from him, watching speechless as his allies devastate the Narn
homeworld, an act that sets the stage for the Narn to all-too-eagerly
return the favor; and Londo, just before the final push of events
began, receiving an embrace from Delenn that he does not fully
understand, but knows cannot bode well for his people. Londo has had a
long journey, much of it through darkness; and just as he appeared to
be coming back into the light, the ground opened up beneath his feet
and swallowed him into the abyss once more.


"Isn't it strange, G'Kar? When we first met, I had no power, and all
the choices I could ever want. And now I have all the power I could
ever want, and no choices at all. No choice at all."


There are many memorable monologues in this episode. The Drakh stands
at the palace window, watching the destruction as he explains how
Londo's people have now been molded into what the Drakh need the
Centauri to be. In this one moment, the Drakh may be scarier than the
Shadows ever were. The speech is as articulate as it is calm and
patient. The Drakh are nothing if not patient - and that makes them
absolutely terrifying.

Then there is the Regent's final moment. His story, too, is a tragedy.
>From his first introduction, he was rarely anything but a figure of
fun. He emerged as a man with appreciation for the small joys in life,
a man who never wanted a position of power and, once given it,
certainly never intended to do much with it beyond livening things up
with a few pastels. The Drakh have already destroyed him, left a
basically small and decent man with a legacy of evil. Now the Drakh
are ready for Londo, and the Regent is discarded like so much trash.
Somehow, he finds a moment of dignity in this exit, with a haunting
monologue:


"I have been many things in my life, Mollari. I have been silly. I
have been quiet when I should have spoken. I have been foolish, and I
have wasted far too much time. But I am still Centauri, and I am not
afraid."


Another great speech comes from G'Kar, when Londo comes to him to say
farewell. As Londo starts to exit, G'Kar expresses his friendship with
his former enemy with customary elegance:


"Understand that I can never forgive your people for what they did to
my world. My people can never forgive your people. But I can forgive
you."


The entire relationship between Londo and G'Kar is pretty well summed
up in that speech, which takes up little more than a minute's screen
time. The two Ambassadors who wanted nothing more in the universe than
to destroy each other have both grown, have both journeyed through
fire and darkness. They now understand each other. Londo found it in
himself to apologize to G'Kar at the beginning of this season. And
G'Kar, who only one season earlier announced that he wanted nothing to
do with Londo (before the War for Earth pushed them together once
more), now finds it in himself to grant Londo Mollari, the individual,
the forgiveness of G'Kar, the individual. I would doubt the humanity
of anyone who could hear that speech, and watch Londo's reaction to
that speech, without being affected.

Readers of these reviews know that I've always loved JMS's monologues,
from the very beginning of the series. His use of words is less like
television than like really fine theatre. This episode takes that
tendency to a new level. I don't feel entirely off-the-mark in
comparing the use of words in this episode with the plays of William
Shakespeare. The vaguely medieval trappings of the Centauri palace
probably do much to enhance this impression, but once again
Straczynski shows that the power of a few well-chosen words can make
as deep an impression in the mind as any visual.

Breathtaking stuff.


THE BAD

The tragedy of Centauri Prime and Londo Mollari is so majestically
rendered, it seems almost churlish for me to complain yet again about
Sheridan's ineffectiveness during this arc. Nonetheless, I couldn't
help but be struck by the way that, yet again, Sheridan allows himself
to just go along with events even when he knows/should know that
things aren't right. The Narn and Drazi fleets opened fire on Centauri
Prime, expressly against Sheridan's orders, and in so doing butchered
tens of thousands of civilians. Sheridan's response to this is to...
get really mad and yell at the Narn captain, who promptly smugs
Sheridan into impotence. From all indications, there will be no
repercussions against the Narn or Drazi for an act that surely must
qualify as a war crime. Defying President Sheridan is evidently
something that can be done quite lightly, since nothing will really
happen if you go against him. Sheridan won't even follow up on the
Shadow pods discovered by Stephen and Lyta, offering a (rather weak-
sounding) explanation that Londo's claim that the Regent had purchased
them on the black market dead ends any attempt at an investigation. He
even allows himself to be quite easily provoked by Londo into
insisting on crippling reparations... which doesn't quite ring true
for me, because Sheridan - presented throughout his introductory
season as a major history buff - would surely know that crippling a
defeated enemy with disproportionate reparations is a poor policy,
that never leads to anything good.

None of these items are enough to reduce the episode's score. This is
one of the best episodes of "Babylon 5."  Peter Jurasik's very best
performance in the entire series... some of J. Michael Straczinsky's
most haunting use of monologue and dialogue to paint pictures far
beyond any show's budget... an episode that is the culmination of more
than five seasons for the characters of Londo and G'Kar.

It is impossible that this episode could earn less than...


My Final Rating: 10/10.
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
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