Written by J.Michael Straczynski and Larry DiTillio
Directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño

One of the things about rewatching Babylon 5 nearly thirty years after it first aired is how eerily prescient J. Michael Straczynski was on many topics. Some of it might be that the fascism seen in Europe in the 1930s is rearing its ugly head in the United States of today, so it’s a case of history repeating itself. Watching Confessions and Lamentations after having gone through the COVID pandemic is also haunting, although I think Straczynski was actually thinking of the AIDS epidemic when he penned this episode.

Commander Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) is with Lt. Commander Ivanova (Claudia Christian) in C&C when she informs him that a Markab transport is overdue. Ivanova wants to send Starfuries out but has to wait for Lt. Keffer (Robert Rusler) to return. He has been taking a Starfury out in his spare time, investigating what he thinks he saw back in A Distant Star.

Dr. Franklin (Richard Biggs) is attending the death of one of the Markab on the Station. He has had four Markab die on the station in the last three days, apparently by natural causes, but he’s still concerned.

Ivanova sends a squadron of Starfuries out to locate the missing transport. She tells Keffer about the moratorium on flights in his downtime, and he’s resistant to stopping. Still, he goes out with the squadron. They locate the transport only to find the entire population of the ship is dead.

Minbari Ambassador Delenn (Mira Furlan) has invited Sheridan to a traditional Minbari meal. He’s ready to dig in when Delenn stops him, saying there are certain rituals that must be followed. He falls asleep during the meditation part. When he awakens, he has to deal with the arrival of the Makab transport.

Dr. Franklin meets with Sheridan and the Markab doctor, Doctor Lazarenn (Jim Norton), in the landing bay. Franklin discovered that the Markab were suffering from a contagious and fatal plague. With the social implications associated with the disease, the Markab have been trying to hide the spread of the disease from outsiders. Dr. Lazarenn laments that they have been working on finding a treatment or cure, but with little money to do so. They don’t know if it’s contagious outside of the Markab species. Sheridan decides to quarantine Babylon 5 until they learn more about the disease.

The Markab Ambassador protests that the Markab population is being forced to comply with medical testing against their will. They see the presence of the disease as an implication that those who suffer from it are immoral. He accuses Sheridan and Dr. Franklin of conspiring to destroy the Markab. He sees the immorality of the surrounding population on the Station as having rubbed off on the Markab and caused the disease, prompting him to self-quarantine the Markab race. They think prayers and repentance will enable them to survive.

Dr. Frankin finds out the disease is airborne, which means it’s throughout the Station since the air is recirculated. Delenn, along with Lennier, volunteers to go into the Isolation Zone to care for the Markab. Sheridan challenges her, but she argues that compassion shouldn’t exist only for those who look like you. The two of them share an intimate moment before she departs.

Dr. Franklin compares Drafa to the Black Death that plagued the earth in the 14th century. Dr. Lazarenn then begins to show symptoms of the disease as well. They also find out that the disease has jumped to the Pak’Ma’Ra race. It’s now a race against time for Dr. Franklin to find a cure before it kills more species. On his deathbed, Dr. Lazarenn gives him some possible insight into what could potentially be the root cause of the disease. Unfortunately, it’s too late for the Markab, who have all died inside the isolation zone.

“The diseason onle appeared once before. Centuries ago. On a small island on our world, noted for certain excesses. When it was struck down, the rest of my people believed it was a punishment by the Gods for their lack of morality. They even named the disease after the island devastated by it … Drafa.”

It’s obvious the Markab disease, known as Drafa is a parallel to AIDS which was still a fatal disease at the time. Still, following the COVID epidemic, it’s also relevant to how many people reacted in 2020 with the disbelief in science and embracing demagoguery. People would rather believe that the only people who were dying of COVID somehow “deserved it” much the same way people did in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. They would talk about comorbidities without really having an understanding of what it means, medically. Somehow, though, this reassured them that *they* wouldn’t die since *they* didn’t fit the category. The fact that this relates so much to our more recent epidemic shows Straczynski sure knew human nature.

Confessions and Lamentations is mostly a stand-alone episode, although it’s also one of the early steps in the development of the relationship between Sheridan and Delenn. It’s not just sharing the meal together, but at the end of the episode how Delenn turns to Sheridan for comfort. Mira Furlan’s acting is stellar. She’s been the embattled Ambassador for a while and we’ve seen her fierce side. With this, we see the devastation to her emotions once she’s invested in trying to save the Markab and failing. I’m sure this is not the first time she’s broken down, but it’s the first time viewers get to see her become this emotional.

Richard Biggs has a large role here and handles it well. I believe this is one of the kicking-off points for his later story as he’s working so hard on finding a cure for the plague and needs to stay awake. Keffer was underused in the series, but here he gets a few moments in the spotlight. He’s still on a quest to understand what it was that he saw in hyperspace. He balks at Sheridan’s cutting off his personal space-time, although there is a good reason for it. It’s a small bit here that reminds viewers that the Shadows are still lurking, even as the Markab race died off due to their own prejudices.

Although Confessions and Lamentations is not a must-viewing for the overall story in Babylon 5, it’s an excellent episode that has now been proven timeless. The acting is terrific, especially by Mira Furlan and Richard Biggs. There’s a little levity with Sheridan at the traditional Minbari meal, but this is a pretty serious episode overall. It shows how rejecting science in favor of misguided beliefs can wipe out an entire race of beings.

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