“Soul Mates”
Written by Peter David
Directed by John C. Flinn III
Season 2, Episode 7
Production episode 208
Original air date: December 14, 1994
It was the dawn of the third age… Vir is waiting at customs and practicing greeting people. Garibaldi wanders over to see why he’s talking to himself. Vir explains that he’s here to greet Mollari’s three wives, who are en route. However, once Timov, the first of them, arrives, she insists on being taken to the ambassador immediately without waiting for the other two.
Garibaldi then sees two people having a discussion that starts with one person yelling at the other, then, suddenly, the yelling guy calms down and wanders off. Garibaldi tries to follow the other one, but loses him. However, he’s able to get his name from the passenger manifest, and while Matthew Stoner is clean, Garibaldi has a bad feeling about him.
While reporting this to Sheridan, Winters comes into Sheridan’s office, and is stunned to learn that Stoner is on the station: turns out he’s her ex-husband.
Vir is stuck in Mollari’s quarters with Timov, who is soon joined by Daggair. It becomes instantly clear that Daggair and Timov can’t stand each other. Mollari, meanwhile, is celebrating in the Zocalo, buying drinks for everyone.
Delenn summons Ivanova to her quarters, begging for help with dealing with her newly acquired head of hair, which is out of control. Turns out that Minbari methods of cleaning the body work great on skin but do not work on hair in the least…
Sheridan tracks down Winters in a gallery exhibiting twentieth-century decorative arts, since Winters left in a huff after finding out Stoner was on the station. Having calmed a bit, Winters explains to the captain that Stoner was one of her trainers in Psi Corps. When it was discovered that they were genetically compatible, Psi Corps had them marry, so they might produce more telepathic children. However, the marriage was, to say the least, bad, and when Stoner left the Corps the marriage was annulled. Sheridan expresses surprise, as he was under the impression that the only way you left the Corps was “feet first,” but Winters says he had connections of some kind, apparently.
G’Kar asks Sheridan how he’s settling in to command of the station, something similar to what Winters said to him earlier. Sheridan wonders why everyone seems so convinced that his assignment is temporary, to which G’Kar reminds him that Sinclair’s reassignment was extremely sudden and completely unexplained, so perhaps the captain can understand everyone being skittish about the stability of his command.
Mollari shows up in a great mood, even being nice to G’Kar, which just confuses everyone.
Finally, Mollari arrives at his quarters to an annoyed Timov and a fawning Daggair. Timov is even more annoyed by how Daggair is suddenly being so nice to their husband, given that she threatened to murder him just a month ago. Mollari wants to wait until Mariel shows up, but Timov insists on knowing what’s going on.
Mollari explains that it’s the thirtieth anniversary of his Ascension—which Daggair knew, but Timov didn’t—and, because his star is rising, he got an audience with the emperor. At that audience, Mollari was informed that the emperor would grant him one wish, if it was in his power to grant it. Mollari asked for a triple divorce.
The emperor modified the wish: he insisted that Mollari keep one wife to have by his side at official functions. So now he gets to choose which wife he keeps and which two he tosses out on their ears with no more title, privilege, or money. At the end of this gleeful imparting of information on Mollari’s part, the third wife, Mariel, enters.
Stoner sells a Centauri artifact to a trader. Garibaldi observes the transaction and brings Stoner in for questioning, though he has a provenance for the artifact, which he found on a legitimate archeological dig that he was part of. Garibaldi makes it clear that Winters is his friend and to stay the hell away from her. Stoner, for his part, is completely and aggressively unintimidated.
Lennier comes to Delenn’s quarters to inform her of the invitation to Mollari’s Ascension party, and is rather confused to see that her hair is in curlers.
Mariel bumps into Sheridan at the Zocalo, having lost track of Mollari, Timov, and Daggair—Mollari was giving his wives a tour. Mariel flirts rather openly with Sheridan until Mollari finds them. The ambassador takes the captain aside and warns him that Mariel is drawn to men of power the way moths are drawn to flames—except in her case, she does the burning. Meanwhile, Mariel purchases the Centauri artifact from the trader to whom Stoner sold it.
Stoner approaches Winters, despite her explicit desire for him to go away, and explains that he left Psi Corps because he was able to have his telepathic abilities removed. He offers the same treatment to her, enabling her to get out of the Corps and join him. She is tempted by at least the first part of that offer.
Mollari’s party is quite crowded. Centauri tradition holds that all participants must be barefoot. G’Kar, of course, shows up in boots, which he hopes will offend Mollari, but Mollari is completely uncaring, which disappoints G’Kar.
Later on, Mollari is opening his gifts. When he unwraps the Centauri artifact, two darts shoot out and hit Mollari in the forehead, rendering him instantly unconscious.
Mariel is shocked—shocked!—to learn that the artifact was a weapon. All three wives hover over Mollari’s comatose form in medlab. Daggair mentions to Timov that the divorce is not official, and if he dies now, they all stand to inherit, instead of just the one he chooses.
Garibaldi hauls Stoner back in for questioning. The artifact was found on a world that the Centauri abandoned due to Narn aggression, and it was probably made into a booby trap designed to go off when touched by Centauri DNA. Stoner is completely unfazed by the threats from both Garibaldi and Sheridan regarding his status as an accessory to the attempted murder of a diplomat.
Timov goes to Franklin privately and admits that she has the same blood type as Mollari, and so can give him a transfusion, which would save his life. Franklin wonders why she didn’t mention this sooner, and she admits she considered the possibility of letting him die. However, her transfusing him is on the condition that Franklin never reveal that she did it. She couldn’t bear the false gratitude. Franklin is totally okay with it.
Later, Mollari wakes up to the sight of all three wives, and when asks if he knows where he is, he says either medlab or hell.
Welch reports to Garibaldi that his deep background check of Stoner doesn’t reveal anything they didn’t already know. He casually mentions that Stoner is eating, which catches Garibaldi off-guard, as it isn’t feeding time in the holding cells. Welch, befuddled, says he asked for food and he got it.
Winters visits Stoner in holding and says she’s decided not to take him up on his offer. Stoner tells her that yes, actually, she will, and Winters suddenly agrees. He then asks Welch to let them go and get a ship prepped for them, to which Welch readily agrees.
Out in the corridor, Garibaldi approaches them and slugs Stoner, which enables Winters and Welch to snap out of it.
G’Kar is in his night clothes, chatting with his lover: Mariel. G’Kar says that he knows that Mariel knew damn well what that artifact was, though he intends to keep it a secret. However, he urges her to be careful, since if he could figure it out, so could Mollari.
Psi Corps has demanded that Stoner be turned over to them, which is what they expected to happen once he was charged with a crime. Stoner hasn’t really left Psi Corps. Sheridan guesses that Stoner was experimented on, and now can influence people to do what he wants them to do. Psi Corps pretended to let him leave, but he’s still working for them in secret, including sending him to B5 to try to reconnect with Winters so they can make babies with his new abilities.
Despite being found out, Stoner asks Winters to come with him. She turns him down very thoroughly.
Mollari has made his decision: he’s keeping Timov. Mariel and Daggair will, at least, get an alimony settlement rather than being cut off all together. Timov privately asks Mollari why, to which he replies that with her, he always knows exactly where he stands. She’s always been completely honest with him, unlike the other two.
Delenn thanks Ivanova for her aid, and wonders if she can explain why she’s having these cramps…
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan is rather put out by the number of people who are asking how he’s settling in and implying that they’re worried he’ll be gone soon.
Ivanova is God. It’s not clear why Delenn goes to Ivanova for help with her hair when there have to be actual barbers and hair stylists on the station…
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi gives a lengthy speech to Sheridan about how he just gets bad feelings about certain people, which is why he looked into Stoner. Why he doesn’t just say, “The guy who was yelling at him suddenly stopped yelling at him for no reason” is left as an exercise for the viewer.
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Minbari clean themselves via the removal of a layer of epidermis through heat, which works fine on hairless skin, but is really not good for hair….
(How the Minbari men with beards deal with it is not addressed.)
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Among the Centauri upper classes, at the thirtieth anniversary of your Ascension, you apparently get a big party. And presents. And, if you’re politically popular, a boon from the emperor.
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar tends to get a headache when things don’t make sense to him. He gets them a lot, apparently…
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Psi Corps has been experimenting on their people to make them powerful enough to influence someone else’s thoughts and actions. (This is identified as being an empath in dialogue, which isn’t exactly what the word means, but whatever.)
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Both Daggair and Mariel sleep with Mollari—at the same time, even!—in the hopes of influencing him to keep one of them. Mariel also flirts with Sheridan, and appears to be a long-term lover of G’Kar’s.
Also Stoner plays on Garibaldi’s attraction to Winters by offering to describe her sexual prowess in detail, which nearly gets him punched by Garibaldi in full macho-asshole mode.
Welcome aboard. After being mentioned in “The War Prayer,” we finally meet Mollari’s three wives, who are played by Lois Nettleton (Daggair), Blair Valk (Mariel), and Jane Carr (Timov).
Veteran character actor Keith Szarabajka plays Stoner, while recurring regular David L. Crowley is back from “The Geometry of Shadows” as Welch.
And we have a Robert Knepper moment, as I totally forgot that Carel Struycken was in this as the trader! Struycken is probably best known for his recurring role as Mr. Homn on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also as Lurch in three Addams Family films.
Trivial matters. This is the first of three episodes in the franchise written by award-winning, best-selling novelist and comics writer Peter David, who will also write “There All the Honor Lies” and Crusade’s “Ruling from the Tomb.” David will also go on to write several B5 novels, including novelizations of the movies In the Beginning and Thirdspace and the “Legions of Fire” trilogy, which focuses on the Centauri Republic. Both Timov and Mariel play supporting roles in the latter trilogy.
The working title for this episode was “Pestilence, Famine, and Death,” referencing the nicknames that Mollari gave to his three wives in “The War Prayer.” David had considered giving all three of them names that related to their nicknames, but decided that was too cutesy—however, he kept “Timov” as the name for “Famine,” as that’s “vomit” spelled backwards.
This episode was written and produced after “A Race Through Dark Places,” which is why Winters is more apprehensive about Psi Corps than one might think watching this episode first. However, “A Race…” had more post-production work, so this episode was aired first.
Timov identifies herself as the daughter of Alghul, which translates from Arabic to “the demon.” It’s also part of the name of long-time Batman villain Ra’s al-Ghul.
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“People seem to be implying that I shouldn’t get too comfortable.”
“Oh, nonsense—it’s not as if anyone expects you to, oh, vanish overnight under mysterious circumstances to a strange Minbari post. Why, that would be unprecedented in this station’s history.”
—Sheridan making an observation and G’Kar providing an extremely sarcastic rejoinder.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “If I were married to Londo Mollari, I’d be concerned.” First of all, full disclosure: this episode’s writer, Peter David, is a friend and colleague of your humble rewatcher’s of more than thirty years’ standing.
Secondly, this episode is a great deal of fun, and a big reason for it is David’s most excellent ear for dialogue and for humor. J. Michael Straczynski and Lawrence G. DiTillio, who have done the bulk of the writing for the show to date, have many virtues as writers, but neither is particularly ept with humor. David’s script, though, sparkles with some lovely dialogue, from G’Kar’s sarcastic rejoinder to Sheridan quoted above, to pretty much every acid line of dialogue spoken by Jane Carr’s Timov, to Mollari’s joyous reveling in his impending freedom from two-thirds of his wives.
I will also give David credit for giving Winters a plot that actually involves her, rather than one that could easily have been given to any generic telepath, and which is also genuinely engaging. If you want to someone to play an arrogant sleaze, you can hardly go wrong casting Keith Szarabajka, and he arrogant-sleazes it up something fierce. His verbal fencing with Garibaldi is well played by him and Jerry Doyle, and Andrea Thompson makes Winters’ feelings for Stoner convincing and compelling.
And it’s very typical of David to look at Delenn now with hair and think, “Okay, how does someone from a hairless race take care of her newly acquired lengthy brunette tresses?” The moment when Ivanova opens the quarters to see Delenn with a rat’s nest atop her head is epic, as is the later look on Bill Mumy’s face when Lennier is confronted with Delenn’s hair up in curlers.
Having said that, I’m baffled as to why the job of helping Delenn work on her hair went to Ivanova. Surely there are hairdressers on the station? I mean, it’s a city in space, and I dare you to show me a city anywhere that doesn’t have dozens, if not hundreds, of places to get your hair dealt with by a tonsorial professional.
The main plot is—fine? I don’t know, the whole man-henpecked-by-his-overbearing-wife plot has whiskers on it, and multiplying it by three just makes it more tired. Carr and Lois Nettleton ameliorate the problem with their superlative performances, at least, but they’re both big honking clichés. That gets bigger and honkier with Mariel, to whom Blair Valk gives neither nuance nor depth. It’s just the bitch, the social climber, and the seductress. Snore.
Also, it seems to me that the revelation that G’Kar is sleeping with one of Mollari’s wives should’ve had more impact, both in this episode and after it. Alas, none of the wives will be seen again onscreen, which is disappointing.
Still, this is an enjoyable hour, one that gives almost everyone something to do. I particularly like that David found small but strong roles for Vir (his helplessness in the face of the three wives is adorable), Lennier (as mentioned above), Franklin (his dialogue exchanges with both Timov and Mollari are fabulous), and Winters. (Even David couldn’t find anything for Na’Toth or Keffer to do, which is a problem faced by everyone who wrote for the show in its sophomore season…)
Next week: “A Race Through Dark Places.”
