9 thoughts on “Earhart’s: “Dust to Dust” Spoiler Space”
This episode really cements Bester as a lovable villain. We really get to see his twisted sense of humor. No matter what you think of the telepath plot in season 5, getting more Bester out of it was a great thing.
As for G’Kar being “programmed,” I never saw it that way. Kosh even says at the end of the vision that he has a choice. Sure Kosh is pushing him the way he wants him to go, just like he has with Sheridan and Delenn, but in the end G’Kar isn’t forced into anything. Though appearing as a spiritual icon wasn’t really fair…
One spoiler that I always notice is in the end of the episode where Londo tells Vir not to let the Centaurum think of his position as a joke.
This is future Emperor Londo telling the future Emperor Vir not to let the Centaurum think of the position he uses to smuggle Narns to safety as a joke. And Vir says that he won’t.
I think this is also revealing for the complexity of Londo’s motives in rewriting Vir’s report.
On the one hand, I think it’s pretty clear that he genuinely does think that he’s helping Vir by making sure that Vir, by telling the authorities on Centauri Prime what they want to hear, does what’s best for Vir’s future prospects. Londo absolutely does care about Vir – which is part, I think, of why Vir retains his faith in Londo in this episode.
On the other hand, Londo has to patronize Vir and assert his superior “political sophistication” over his “naive” former assistant. Key to Londo’s eventual redemption is the moment in S4 when he acknowledges that Vir’s “untouched” innocence is actually something that he values. Here he has to trample on Vir’s authentic response because to do otherwise would be to acknowledge that Vir is morally superior to him.
Another aspect of the fact that Vir retains faith in Londo is that it prepares one for another moment in S4. One is when Vir, confronted with Cartagia’s sadism, endorses killing him – Cartagia, unlike Londo, genuinely is irredeemable.
Incidentally, are you the same Melanie as “Melanie, the Krakovian Vir Fan”?
Another important moment would be when Londo has used Vir to set up Refa with the Narn resistance and Vir walks out on him. It’s a turning point for all three characters.
G’Kar starts cooperating with some Centauri for the benefit of his people, which we will see more of in season 4.
Vir first tries to refuse to obey Londo when he thinks that G’Kar is being set up and then walks out on Londo at the end of the episode.
Londo first has to approach G’Kar with the offer to free 2000 Narns if he cooperates and is forced to realize how far he has gone when his morality pet walks away. The next time we see Vir and Londo together Londo isn’t ordering him around anymore and in a few episodes we get the scene where Londo admits that he is envious of Vir’s innocence.
Good to hear from you in this context. I enjoy your comments when they’re read out on the Downbelow podcast.
Another thought that I had was the irony of the scene in which Londo rewrites Vir. The quality in Vir that he is criticizing, in which Vir responds positively to Minbari culture, is the same optimistic and sympathetic quality that leads Vir to express faith in Londo’s own capacity to be better than he appears.
I admired the mischievous way in which our hosts appeared so skeptical of any possibility of Vir being right about Londo in the non-spoiler section of the podcast, and then flipped that around once they arrived at the spoiler section.
Don’t forget also the little callback in a few episodes, where Minister Virini chastises Vir for the parts of the report that sounded like they were written by Londo…
Thanks, Voord.
Dan, when I had shut down all technology last night I figured out that I should’ve mentioned that. It’s my favorite episode and I missed the chance to bring it up.
So: the problem that G’Kar’s moral transformation is sparked by deceptive manipulation on the part of the Vorlons.
Whether it was intended or not, it perhaps mirrors JMS’s attitude as an atheist but sympathetic to religious perspectives – G’Kar’s turn away from the futile mutual destruction of the Narn-Centauri feud is ultimately based on a lie, but that doesn’t mean that it’s without value.
It’s arguably also case of unintended consequences. Kosh’s motives, based on the rest of the series, are probably purely (or at least mainly) instrumental. He doesn’t object to G’Kar’s vendetta against the Centauri as such; it’s just that it’s wasting a potentially valuable resource to use against the Shadows. (After all, for Kosh both Narn and Centauri are dying peoples.)
Another aspect is that, after this episode, G’Kar knows Londo intimately and has seen Londo as vulnerable and laughable. Right now, this doesn’t lead him to sympathize with Londo. But we are very shortly (in War Without End) going to learn that Londo and G’Kar are going to become close friends – although the accelerated pace of the end of S4 is going to deprive us of a proper depiction of how that friendship develops. (It’s particularly awkward that it results in postponing Londo’s apology to G’Kar, which should be an absolutely critical moment, until after we’ve seen the two already become fairly intimate.)
But it’s significant that this episode juxtaposes Vir’s assertion that he still believes in Londo with G’Kar starting on the road to being the person whose faith in Londo will in S5 most validate Vir’s assertion here.
I guess I can post this in non-spoiler space. That is awesome. A piece of JMS casting magic. The second Psi Cop at the end of the episode, when Bester was admitting that Dust was a Psi Corps invention to create telepaths was none other than Judy Levitt, who is also known as Mrs. Walter Koenig, since July, 1965. So Anna Sheridan wasn’t the only guest star/cameo appearance in B5.
I love when casting does stuff like that.
(Moved to spoiler thread because of Anna Sheridan.)
This episode really cements Bester as a lovable villain. We really get to see his twisted sense of humor. No matter what you think of the telepath plot in season 5, getting more Bester out of it was a great thing.
As for G’Kar being “programmed,” I never saw it that way. Kosh even says at the end of the vision that he has a choice. Sure Kosh is pushing him the way he wants him to go, just like he has with Sheridan and Delenn, but in the end G’Kar isn’t forced into anything. Though appearing as a spiritual icon wasn’t really fair…
One spoiler that I always notice is in the end of the episode where Londo tells Vir not to let the Centaurum think of his position as a joke.
This is future Emperor Londo telling the future Emperor Vir not to let the Centaurum think of the position he uses to smuggle Narns to safety as a joke. And Vir says that he won’t.
I think this is also revealing for the complexity of Londo’s motives in rewriting Vir’s report.
On the one hand, I think it’s pretty clear that he genuinely does think that he’s helping Vir by making sure that Vir, by telling the authorities on Centauri Prime what they want to hear, does what’s best for Vir’s future prospects. Londo absolutely does care about Vir – which is part, I think, of why Vir retains his faith in Londo in this episode.
On the other hand, Londo has to patronize Vir and assert his superior “political sophistication” over his “naive” former assistant. Key to Londo’s eventual redemption is the moment in S4 when he acknowledges that Vir’s “untouched” innocence is actually something that he values. Here he has to trample on Vir’s authentic response because to do otherwise would be to acknowledge that Vir is morally superior to him.
Another aspect of the fact that Vir retains faith in Londo is that it prepares one for another moment in S4. One is when Vir, confronted with Cartagia’s sadism, endorses killing him – Cartagia, unlike Londo, genuinely is irredeemable.
Incidentally, are you the same Melanie as “Melanie, the Krakovian Vir Fan”?
Yes, I’m the same Melanie.
I completely agree with your analysis.
Another important moment would be when Londo has used Vir to set up Refa with the Narn resistance and Vir walks out on him. It’s a turning point for all three characters.
G’Kar starts cooperating with some Centauri for the benefit of his people, which we will see more of in season 4.
Vir first tries to refuse to obey Londo when he thinks that G’Kar is being set up and then walks out on Londo at the end of the episode.
Londo first has to approach G’Kar with the offer to free 2000 Narns if he cooperates and is forced to realize how far he has gone when his morality pet walks away. The next time we see Vir and Londo together Londo isn’t ordering him around anymore and in a few episodes we get the scene where Londo admits that he is envious of Vir’s innocence.
Good to hear from you in this context. I enjoy your comments when they’re read out on the Downbelow podcast.
Another thought that I had was the irony of the scene in which Londo rewrites Vir. The quality in Vir that he is criticizing, in which Vir responds positively to Minbari culture, is the same optimistic and sympathetic quality that leads Vir to express faith in Londo’s own capacity to be better than he appears.
I admired the mischievous way in which our hosts appeared so skeptical of any possibility of Vir being right about Londo in the non-spoiler section of the podcast, and then flipped that around once they arrived at the spoiler section.
Don’t forget also the little callback in a few episodes, where Minister Virini chastises Vir for the parts of the report that sounded like they were written by Londo…
Thanks, Voord.
Dan, when I had shut down all technology last night I figured out that I should’ve mentioned that. It’s my favorite episode and I missed the chance to bring it up.
So: the problem that G’Kar’s moral transformation is sparked by deceptive manipulation on the part of the Vorlons.
Whether it was intended or not, it perhaps mirrors JMS’s attitude as an atheist but sympathetic to religious perspectives – G’Kar’s turn away from the futile mutual destruction of the Narn-Centauri feud is ultimately based on a lie, but that doesn’t mean that it’s without value.
It’s arguably also case of unintended consequences. Kosh’s motives, based on the rest of the series, are probably purely (or at least mainly) instrumental. He doesn’t object to G’Kar’s vendetta against the Centauri as such; it’s just that it’s wasting a potentially valuable resource to use against the Shadows. (After all, for Kosh both Narn and Centauri are dying peoples.)
Another aspect is that, after this episode, G’Kar knows Londo intimately and has seen Londo as vulnerable and laughable. Right now, this doesn’t lead him to sympathize with Londo. But we are very shortly (in War Without End) going to learn that Londo and G’Kar are going to become close friends – although the accelerated pace of the end of S4 is going to deprive us of a proper depiction of how that friendship develops. (It’s particularly awkward that it results in postponing Londo’s apology to G’Kar, which should be an absolutely critical moment, until after we’ve seen the two already become fairly intimate.)
But it’s significant that this episode juxtaposes Vir’s assertion that he still believes in Londo with G’Kar starting on the road to being the person whose faith in Londo will in S5 most validate Vir’s assertion here.
I guess I can post this in non-spoiler space. That is awesome. A piece of JMS casting magic. The second Psi Cop at the end of the episode, when Bester was admitting that Dust was a Psi Corps invention to create telepaths was none other than Judy Levitt, who is also known as Mrs. Walter Koenig, since July, 1965. So Anna Sheridan wasn’t the only guest star/cameo appearance in B5.
I love when casting does stuff like that.
(Moved to spoiler thread because of Anna Sheridan.)