Babylon 5/Recap/S04/E18 Intersections in Real Time

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
< Babylon 5‎ | Recap‎ | S04
You have no rights. There's no courtroom here, Captain. No tribunals, no attorneys, no justice, no mercy, no fairness, no hope, no last minute escape. You will walk through that door when you confess and not one second before.
—The Interrogator

This episode contains examples of:

  • Acquired Poison Immunity: The interrogator has it, which lets him eat the same food as Sheridan and not be affected.
  • Affably Evil: The Interrogator seems like a friendly guy at first.
  • Continuity Nod: The paingivers were first introduced in The Parliament of Dreams. Also they were acquired from the Narn, presumably while they were selling weapons to Earth during the Minbari War.
  • Denied Food as Punishment: Double Subverted. Sheridan is denied food for several days before the episode starts, which the interrogator says is standard procedure to try to soften a prisoner up. Not long after getting to work the interrogator allows Sheridan to eat a corn beef sandwich, but the sandwich was laced with a toxin that caused him to vomit afterward.
  • The Determinator: Sheridan.
  • Electric Torture: Sheridan is wearing paingivers that the Interrogator uses to punish Sheridan if he misbehaves.
  • Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Interrogator is never given a name.
  • Exact Words: The interrogator Will Not Tell a Lie. Be very, very careful about making assumptions when he leaves something unsaid, however.
  • Heroic Resolve: Sheridan.
  • Locked in the Dungeon
  • Mind Screw: A Drazi is brought in, forced to record a confession saying he and others influenced Sheridan, and when Sheridan convinces him to not do it, they take him out and we hear screaming coming from another room. Sheridan is lead to another room, seemingly for execution, where a man wearing a black executioner's hood is waiting, but after a minute another interrogator comes in and begins the process all over while the executioner removes his hood to reveal... the Drazi.
  • The Power of Love: Demonstrated again. Sheridan holds on to his memory of Delenn to not sign a False Confession.
  • Real Time: Each act of the episode runs on this time frame, with the act breaks being the "intersections".
  • Room 101
  • Spiteful Spit: Sheridan.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot: After feeding him the sandwich, the Interrogator leaves before Sheridan starts throwing up and comes back the next morning after it's been cleaned up.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Babylon_5/Recap/S04/E18_Intersections_in_Real_Time?oldid=1206255"