I forgot how fast season 4 moves.

[conuly]

Wow, six episodes in and - yup, shadow war over! Of course, maybe they could've taken a few minutes to pack their things before they all left. I'm just saying.

Jenn and Eva apparently forgot Londo's prophecy literally the minute it was over. Naturally. Luckily, I was there to point out that Londo has already squandered two* out of three remaining checkpoints, and now he's only got one save left.

Not that I can figure out how he could possibly have saved G'Kar's eye by that point.

* None of this talk about how the second chance has to do with Sheridan. Since Londo never kills Sheridan, even metaphorically, Sheridan can't be the one who's already dead. That wouldn't make any narrative sense if we're told "Don't do these three things" and then he manages to avoid doing the second thing after all. It's gotta be Morden, and let's be real - 50% of Londo's motivation here was spite. Not that Morden, like Refa, didn't thoroughly deserve his fate, but still. Londo would've done it even if he'd known that the Vorlons would be recalled at the very last second. Anybody endorsing the Sheridan theory, up to and including JMS, is simply wrong.

Comments

[selenak]

I’m 100% with you on Morden as the one already dead. (And on Londo’s motivation.) As for G’Kar’s eye, well, we do have Londo’s own subconscious opinion on this as voiced in “The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari” by his inner G’Kar - that his sin there was not saying anything. Now whether Londo could have come up with a distraction that talked Cartagia out of blinding one of G’Kar’s eyes is indeed questionable. But he did manage to talk Cartagia out of killing G’Kar to begin with, and after prolonged exposure to Cartagia, he should have known that just saying “Oh, I’m sure whatever your Majesty decides will be appropriate” would inevitably result in something horrible for G’Kar. (Even if he’d ensured it wouldn’t be death.) Mind you, Londo had a coup and an occupation ending to organize, so he does have a pretty good excuse for being distracted himself, as excuses go. But it still cost G’Kar an eye, as far as Londo’s subconscious is concerned.

[jesuswasbatman]

Yep, and my headcanon is that not killing Morden would have saved London practically, not just morally, because Morden would have been outraged at being left behind by the Shadows, and told everyone about the Drakh and their Keepers.

[conuly]

I think all the choices would've saved Centauri Prime practically and Londo morally, in Morden's case for probably something like your headcanon.

[dewline]

And not just Londo and Centauri Prime, but Earth down the road, being saved thereby.

[cellio]

Yeah, the pace of season 4 was frustrating. The network wouldn't tell JMS whether he had a fifth season until very late, so he crammed stuff in and then was left with too much space to fill in season 5 when he got it after all. I remember JMS saying somewhere (presumably on Usenet) that if he'd known he had season 5 in time, "Intersections in Real Time" would have been the end of season 4.

(Which still would have left him a lot of room for the telepath plotline in S5, and the less said about that part, the better.)