I missed the episode before this when it first aired. I went from Sheridan being rescued from capture and tortune and the cliffhanger on attacking Earth and Susan paralyzed on a death bed to this scene. I was lost and it still wrecked me.
Every time I view the screen of Ivanovo crying about death Marcus, I cry. I am 73 years old. Do let the lord governments take you to war, War is for profit and YOU do not profit! If politicians can not tell you WHY, politicians has FAILED his/her elected job
6:52 - To Think that Claudia was nominated for a Saturn Award for her work on Season 4 of Babylon 5, it sad that this scene of Ivanova and Franklin discussing the death of Marcus, stating that she knew how much he loved her, wasn't enough to help her win... there needs to be a Award Given Just for this moment alone
You missed one of the best bits where she repeats what he had said earlier, explains she has a great memory and then states, since she knows (some) Minbari, she thanks him for the "greeting"
And the brilliance of writing where right in the middle of a heart-wrenching scene they could toss in the humorous line "...at least I should have boffed him just once..." Any less of a writer or actor that would have killed the whole scene.
Very sweet. However, the best Interaction, is between Delen and G'gar, over the Minbari Wars. Still makes me cry, as it was an honest response to real life, Babylon 5, way a Grown up Story
"The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." - Numbers 6:24-26 - KJV.
In my experience, there has been two BRILLIANTLY ACTED AND WRITTEN SERIES I have loved: B5 and The West Wing. I feel honoured to have witnessed them both in my life...
The following is CANON as decreed by JMS. His Final Sacrifice Marcus Cole was devastated when Susan Ivanova was mortally wounded during the civil war against Earth. A slip of Lennier's tongue led Marcus to search Dr. Franklin's records until he learned of Laura Rosen's alien healing device. He abandoned his position in the fleet and rushed back to Babylon 5. Arriving on November 4, 2261, he used the device to transfer his life energy to Ivanova, restoring her life at the expense of his own. Franklin rushed back to the station, but he was too late to stop Marcus. A bereaved Ivanova ordered Marcus placed in cryonic suspension. A Second Chance Marcus awoke nearly 300 years later. In the intervening years, his cryotube had been moved to Minbar. Eventually, the ruins of the alien civilization that had built the healing device were found, and the Minbari doctors gained the information they needed to revive Marcus. Marcus had conflicting feelings about his predicament. Had Ivanova frozen him as a form of revenge, condemning him to live his life without her as he had condemned her to live without him? Or had she really loved him? Marcus inherited a large trust fund that had been prepared for him. He purchased a small jump-cable ship and traveled to Sirius Nine. From the Neural Archives there he stole Susan Ivanova's Voice, a neural map of her mind. His next stop was a rogue human scientist operating in Brakiri space. He gave the doctor a strand of Ivanova's hair that he had found on his jacket to create a clone. It would cost the bulk of his money. Marcus ordered the doctor to implant Ivanova's memories from her Voice into the clone, but only up to the point at which she was mortally wounded during the Earth Civil War. Next, Marcus traveled to Mars where he rented a cryotube for 32 years and four months. Thirty-two years later, Marcus returned to the rogue scientist and retrieved the new clone. He took her to Chryn III, a planet he had discovered long before with his brother. It was a beautiful paradise but had no sentient life or mineral resources. He unloaded his ship and destroyed it. The Ivanova clone awoke to find herself stranded in paradise with Marcus Cole. She remembered very little after her injury on the White Star, but he assured her that they had won the war. Marcus and Susan set off to explore their new home...
Why was Marcus always so criptic around Ivanova? He should have just come right out and told her how felt. Maybe if she know wouldn't end up sacrificing himself save her.
Their story, one of loving without expectation, loving sincerely, genuinely, is one of the most powerful expressions of it, I have seen in sci-fi. In the 90's we had a lot of great science fiction, and I fall back to the Deep Space Nine/Babylon 5 era. Their stories were that good. This one, is at the very top of that list. Bravo for all of the players in these scenes, some are not here anymore, but this here is a testament of what love, should be... Without expectation...and unconditional.
A part of me thought Marcus was overdoing it with the machine and he should have set it so that Ivanova would survive and but not completely healed and they would heal her slowly with the machine over time. The setting isn't just instantly death to heal.
Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit, without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis.
He didn't die. In the ending credits of the last episode we see the characters as they were early in the series and how they were at the end. For Marcus there's some kind of cerificate which you might assume is a death certificate. But if you look close you realize it isn't. It's a certificate of cryogenic suspension. If you want to know what happened next, JMS wrote a short story called "Space, Time and the Incurable Romantic".
*¡Claudia Christian was born Claudia Ann Coghlan on Tuesday, 10 August 1965!* <-> 11:41 am Pacific Daylight Savings Time on Tuesday, 19 October 2021 Common Era or CE formerly known as Ano Domini or AD
