“Passing Through Gethsemane”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Adam Nimoy
Season 3, Episode 4
Production episode 305
Original air date: November 27, 1995
It was the dawn of the third age… Sheridan is playing chess against Brother Theo, with Brother Edward and Ivanova spectating. Theo and Sheridan exchange thoughts on faith, with Theo finally winning the game, to Sheridan’s surprise. Edward shows off one of the figurines he makes and gives as gifts. Theo thinks he should sell them—if nothing else, the order could use the money—but Edward insists that the joy is in the making and the giving. He promises to give his current work to Sheridan when it’s finished.
Ivanova is summoned to Bay 13 because Kosh’s ship is arriving. But Kosh meets her in the bay to await the passenger on his ship: Alexander. After leaving B5 the last time, she hired a ship to take her to the Vorlon border. Days of no response led the shipmaster she hired to abandon the job, but he left her in an escape pod. The Vorlons finally grabbed her just before she would have died, and she’s been on the Vorlon homeworld since—until she came here at Kosh’s behest. She is, however, not allowed to say what she experienced there.
Franklin requests a complete physical, which he performs, and finds that she no longer has low iron content in her blood, which was a congenital condition, her enlarged appendix is now a normal-sized appendix, and her hiatal hernia is gone. Her blood is also super-oxygenated, which is not what you’d expect from someone who suffered oxygen deprivation recently. Alexander has no answers for Franklin.
Delenn meets with Garibaldi to discuss a security concern. Garibaldi is watching an ISN piece on a convicted murderer who has been sentenced to death of personality. Garibaldi explains to Delenn how that replaced the death penalty in the Earth Alliance.
Edward enters his quarters, only to find “DEATH WALKS AMONG YOU” written in blood on the bulkhead. He immediately calls Garibaldi, but by the time the security chief arrives, the words are gone. Garibaldi promises to send a forensic team.
As part of Theo’s order’s mission, Edward meets with Delenn and Lennier to discuss Minbari religion. At Delenn’s request, Edward tells the story of Jesus at the garden at Gethsemane right before he was arrested. That story in particular appeals to Edward because Jesus knew what was coming, knew that he would be betrayed by one of his followers (Judas) and arrested. But he stayed in the garden and met his fate, rather than try to run away. Edward has always wondered if he would have the courage to do the same in a similar situation.
Later, walking through a corridor, Edward bumps into a Centauri. Right after that, he starts hearing voices. Once again, he sees, “DEATH WALKS AMONG YOU” written in blood on a bulkhead. And then he sees images in his mind of a dead woman with a black rose in her mouth.
Edward does some digging—as does Sheridan, on Theo’s behalf, as Theo is worried about Edward. It soon becomes clear that Edward was once Charles Dexter, a.k.a. “The Black Rose Killer,” a serial murderer on an Earth colony who was sentenced to death of personality. The facility he was at after his mindwipe had a fire, and it was assumed that he died there. But he survived, and found his way to Theo’s order. His new personality was conditioned to serve humanity, after all.
Edward is beside himself, and refuses Theo’s offer of solace. However, Garibaldi’s investigation reveals that the voices Theo heard were piped through the station audio system, and that the words he saw on the bulkheads were made by a compound that looks like blood, and which disappears after a bit.
For his part, Edward is approached by a bunch of people, led by a man named Malcolm. They are from the families of Charles Dexter’s victims. Malcolm says he’s the only one willing to torture and kill Edward, and he proceeds to do so.
Figuring that the Centauri Edward bumped into is a telepath, they track him down pretty quickly. He says he was hired to do a job, and he did it, and refuses to answer anymore questions. So Garibaldi puts a bag over his head, and Alexander comes in and extracts the information from him telepathically: Edward is in Brown 42.
A security team goes there to find Edward being crucified. They cut him down, but he’s too far gone, and dies in Theo’s arms, though not before Theo grants him forgiveness.
Allan captures Malcolm, who immediately and gleefully confesses to his crime.
An indeterminate span of time later, Ivanova meets Alexander at Bay 13, the latter’s true movements having been concealed by the senior staff of B5 to keep her safe from Psi Corps. Ivanova informs Alexander that Malcolm pled guilty and was sentenced to death of personality.
Theo gives Sheridan the figurine that Edward was going to give him—it’s not finished, but Sheridan gladly takes it. The captain also meets the newest member of the order: Brother Malcolm. Edward’s killer is doing his service to humanity by being part of Theo’s order. Sheridan is obviously not happy about it, but grits his teeth and welcomes Malcolm.
In Kosh’s quarters, he faces Alexander. The helmet of his encounter suit has been removed, and beams of light are going from Alexander’s eyes and mouth into Kosh’s bright true form. Also Alexander now has gills on her neck, which were not there when Franklin examined her. That isn’t creepy at all…
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan says his faith is eclectic and open-minded. Theo says he’s rudderless, directionless, and cast adrift without a compass on an ocean of ecclesiastical possibilities. Which he says right before he puts Sheridan in checkmate.
Ivanova is God. Ivanova proposes a wager with Edward on the chess game between Theo and Sheridan, but Edward says that gambling’s a minor sin—if you’re gonna sin, go for one of the really big ones.
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi provides exposition to Delenn and the viewer about how death of personality works, then he does a good job of investigating the weird stuff happening to Edward, though not fast enough to save the monk.
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn explains Minbari faith, which centers on souls, and how the universe is made of them, and they sometimes inhabit a person.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari tries to bribe Alexander to get her to say what she experienced on the Vorlon homeworld. Alexander not only refuses but threatens to insert nightmares into Mollari’s head. The threat is less effective than Alexander intended, as having nightmares wouldn’t significantly change Mollari’s life all that much…
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Alexander is, strictly speaking, a rogue, though the senior staff doesn’t turn her in to Psi Corps because Psi Corps is a bunch of big stinkies, and besides, they can use Alexander to do all kinds of unethical things now!
The Shadowy Vorlons. Kosh appears to be sucking life energy out of Alexander. Or, um, something. Looks nasty, whatever it is. Also the Vorlons apparently made Alexander better, faster, stronger. And gave her gills that appear and disappear as needed.
Looking ahead. Lennier provides some new details about Valen: that he is said to be a Minbari not born of Minbari and nobody knows where he came from. This will pay off in the “War Without End” two-parter later this season.
Welcome aboard. Having spent a large chunk of his career playing mass murderers like Luther Lee Boggs on The X-Files and Lon Suder on Star Trek: Voyager and Chucky in the various Chucky movies and TV shows, Brad Dourif plays completely against type here by playing a monk (checks notes) who, um, it turns out also is a mass murderer. Okay, then.
Back from “Convictions” is Louis Turenne as Theo; he’ll return in “And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place.” Back from “Divided Loyalties” is Patricia Tallman as Alexander; she’ll return in “Walkabout.” Back from “Matters of Honor” is Ardwight Chamberlain as the voice of Kosh; he’ll return in “Dust to Dust.”
Robert Keith plays Malcolm and Mark Folger plays the Centauri telepath.
Trivial matters. The titular story about the garden at Gethsemane—the actual location of which is unknown—appears by name in two of the synoptic gospels of the Bible: Chapter 26 of the Book of Matthew and Chapter 14 of the Book of Mark. The Book of Luke makes reference instead to the Mount of Olives in Chapter 22, while the Book of John simply mentions a garden that is located across the Kidron Valley in Chapter 18. It is where Jesus sat and prayed with his followers right before he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot to the Roman soldiers, who arrested him.
This story was originally supposed to be done during the second season, but then a fan on one of the B5 online forums made a story suggestion very similar to the plot of this one. J. Michael Straczynski then had to, for legal reasons, shelve the idea. The poster in question eventually provided a notarized affidavit explaining the situation and promising not to sue or claim that Straczynski stole his idea. This is why so many online forums have strict rules about posting story ideas, and this script was very nearly scuttled because of it.
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“Theo? I’m afraid. Is there enough forgiveness for what I’ve done?”
“Always, Edward—always. Take my hand.”
—The beginning of Edward and Theo’s final conversation.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Now I know, Theo.” Hey look, it’s The Inevitable Brad Dourif Episode! Before he was Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings or Doc Cochran on Deadwood, Dourif made a career out of showing up on TV shows and movies as mass-murderers (including as the voice of the iconic killer doll Chucky for more than 35 years now).
Here, at least, he gets to show a bit of his range, as we don’t know he’s a mass-murderer until two-thirds of the way through the episode—and neither does he. In Brother Edward we get a serene, friendly monk, who creates an instant good impression in his banter with Ivanova, as well as in his generosity and kindness.
The typecasting only works against the episode insofar as it’s not really a surprise that a character played by Dourif is truly a nutjob, but still, that part of the story really works.
There are a lot of ethical questions that the episode doesn’t address as thoroughly as one might like. The death of personality is a fascinating concept, one that Sheridan and Garibaldi clearly don’t like. But the death penalty itself is a revolting concept, and while I’m not sure that this is an improvement, I’m not sure it isn’t, either. It’s something worth having a discussion about, and this episode sidesteps it for the most part. Malcolm’s incredibly complicated and difficult and expensive revenge against a person who doesn’t truly exist anymore is an extreme reaction. There’s a reason why crimes are tried by an impartial judge and jury, and not the victims of the crime.
It’s also really hard to take our heroes seriously as moral arbiters when they do what they did to that Centauri telepath. Whatever objections Garibaldi and Sheridan have to the death of personality ring hollow when they’re willing to use Alexander to commit a crime that’s not as bad as murder, but still pretty horrible. That poor Centauri was just doing a job. Yes, someone’s life was at stake, but does that end justify those means? Especially when you don’t even save the guy anyhow? The deck is stacked by Mark Folger playing the Centauri as kind of slimy, but that’s just a writer’s trick to make us not feel bad when Garibaldi puts a bag over his head. And it didn’t work on me. That telepath deserved better.
This is still a good episode, but I feel like it missed the mark on being a great one. Still, we get some phenomenal work by Dourif and by Louis Turenne (his gentle trash talking of Sheridan during the chess game is epic, as is his passion for and loyalty to his monks and his order).
And it’s also good to see Patricia Tallman back. That final scene is creepy as hell. I initially was annoyed that Franklin was so incompetent as to miss the gills on Alexander’s neck when he examined her, but I rewatched it and realized that, while her neck was covered for most of the episode, it was exposed in medlab, and there were no gills. So the Vorlons did even more to her than Franklin realized…
Next week: “Voices of Authority.”