Babylon 5 Episode 20 Season 3
And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place is an unusually named episode, and it starts to tie all the threads together for what is going to be I am sure a stunning end to the 3rd season of Babylon 5.
We hadn’t seen much of Londo for a little while and this is very much Londo’s episode. The confrontation with his mortal enemy Lord Refa has been coming for a while and this is where it takes place. Both men are using the Narn and Vir to take down the other. Londo places Vir between a rock and a hard place when he tells him to issue an invitation to G’Kar, which will see G’Kar go to his capture and death. Vir, because he’s a decent person without Londo’s skewed sense of morality, refuses, until Londo threatens to destroy Vir’s family. I had problems with this scene, not because I didn’t believe it, but because I did. Even in his worst moments Londo harbours an affection for Vir, he’s rather like a grumpy, but kindly uncle, and I’m sure he’s seen himself as a father figure to Vir, and I think Vir often feels the same way about Londo. Yet he can so easily threaten to destroy Vir, for not doing his bidding. Londo and G’Kar hate each other, although I’m not sure G’Kar after his rather Gandhiesque transformation is capable of hating one person anymore, the Centauri and the Shadows as entities, but not hatred of a single person, but there was always a grudging respect of each other’s status and abilities. Would Londo really do this to G’Kar? It appears so.
Terrified that Londo will get one up on him and leap frog him in the standing of the Centauri hierarchy, Refa intercepts Vir on his return from his meeting with G’Kar and has him mindread to see what message he carried. He threatened Vir with physical torture first, but I’m not really sure why, because he always intended to have him mindread anyway, so why bother with the torture threats? Possibly because Refa is a vile person and just likes to scare others. I’d like to see someone cut his eyebrows off and stuff them down his throat so he could choke on them.
During the confrontation with G’Kar on Narn homeworld it looked as if Londo was doomed and Refa was going to take him down in a screaming heap, that was until the Centauri guards put down their weapons and were revealed as being loyal to House Mollari. Londo had played his rival like a violin and it was Refa who was in danger. Londo didn’t want to publicly shame Refa, he wanted him out of the way permanently, and he had used Vir delivering false information to G’Kar to do this. Not happy that Londo did that to Vir, but loved that Refa was taken down.
As Refa desperately tries to escape the angry mob of Narn they cut back to Babylon 5 during a religious service given by a hot gospelling minister as the choir sing a rousing spiritual which contains in it’s lyrics the title of the episode we see Refa’s demise. It was very effective. I’ve never liked Refa, and it’s always nice to see a hissable villain meet their just desserts. Refa was beaten to death, it’s a painful way to go, and it was something Refa could see coming, but was powerless to do anything about. Londo possibly could have killed Refa by poison or a bullet, but this way he knew it was coming. Although Londo takes precautions to ensure that he can’t be connected to it, people, especially his rivals, will know, and he takes another significant step on the path to becoming Emperor.
There’s a lot of really cute stuff between Delenn and Sheridan. They’ve really become Babylon 5’s power couple, they no longer hide it, and it’s wonderful. They seem to be learning from each other. Sheridan is picking up some Minbari traits and Delenn is leaning more about how people from Earth react.
The episode ends with Delenn showing Sheridan the fleet of White Stars she’s had built. They’re captained by Rangers. I had doubts about her becoming Ranger leader as she was a member of the Religious Caste and not a Warrior, but she’s done a real good thing here. Sheridan knows from personal experience that the White Star has an even chance against Shadow technology and now he’s got an entire fleet of them. Makes the hairs of the back of the neck stand up.