Synopsis

Arc significance

• Vir
  Vir Cotto
  Vir Cotto is a character from the fictional Babylon 5 universe, played on screen by Stephen Furst. He is a Centauri male who was from a family of minor nobility, who would eventually become the Centauri Ambassador to Babylon 5, and then became the Emperor of the Centauri Republic in 2278.Vir Cotto...
  
   reveals his desire to see Morden beheaded:

• The history of the war between the Shadows and the other races, including the First Ones
  First Ones
  The First Ones is the collective name of a group of aliens from the television science fiction drama Babylon 5.-Overview:The First Ones are the ancient alien races of the galaxy, the first organisms to achieve sentience and the first to become spacefaring. Of these races, Lorien's was the first,...
  
  , is described for the first time.
• This episode establishes Morden's relationship to Anna Sheridan.
• This is the first episode where Franklin states he's taking stims, foreshadowing his future abuse.
• Franklin reveals himself to be a Foundationist
  Foundationism
  Foundationism as presented in the science fiction television series Babylon 5 is an Earth religion, one of several that appeared around the time the Centauri made first contact with the Earth Alliance in 2156.-Beliefs and practices:...
  
  , a religion founded just after humans first went into space.
• The first mention of the Nightwatch
  Nightwatch (Babylon 5)
  In the Babylon 5 science fiction universe, Nightwatch was an Earth Alliance paramilitary organization set up during the Presidency of Morgan Clark...
  
  .
• The Vorlon
  Vorlon
  A Vorlon is a member of a fictional alien species in the Babylon 5 television series and fictional universe. The Vorlon species is a member of the First Ones, a group made up of the earliest species to gain sentience in the galaxy...
  
  s are revealed as being one of the First Ones.
• Z'ha'dum
  Z'ha'dum (planet)
  In the fictional Babylon 5 universe, Z'ha'dum was the homeworld of the ancient, mysterious race known as the Shadows. The planet is near the galactic rim...
  
   is revealed to be the home of the Shadows.
• This episode establishes Sheridan's relationship to Delenn.
• The question that Delenn asked in Season 1 to which she was simply given the answer 'yes' was 'Have the Shadows returned to Z'ha'dum'?

Production details

• This episode was originally intended to air after "Knives", rather than before, with Sheridan's hallucination of the Icarus in that episode serving as a reminder to the audience of his wife's fate before more details were revealed in this episode.

Cultural references

• Pierce Maccabee is the regional director of the Ministry of Peace, AKA "Minipax"—a reference to the organization of the same name and nickname
  Ministry of Peace
  The Ministry of Peace is one of four ministries in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Along with the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Plenty, the Ministry of Peace governs in the Oceanic province of Airstrip One...
  
  —as in Orwell's
  George Orwell
  Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
  
   1984
  Nineteen Eighty-Four
  Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
  
  .
• Sheridan claims that during World War II
  World War II
  World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
  
  , Winston Churchill
  Winston Churchill
  Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
  
   refused to evacuate Coventry
  Coventry
  Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
  
   before its bombing during the Blitz
  Coventry Blitz
  The Coventry blitz was a series of bombing raids that took place in the English city of Coventry. The city was bombed many times during the Second World War by the German Air Force...
  
   because it would give away the fact that they had cracked the Enigma code
  Enigma machine
  An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
  
  . Churchill supposedly had a haunted look in his eyes as he toured the ruins, knowing that he could have saved the people who were killed, at the cost of endangering the war as a whole (November 14, 1940 and April 8, 1941). The truth is somewhat less clear cut, and there is still some dispute about exactly what was known at the time. It is true that intelligence regarding a Luftwaffe
  Luftwaffe
  Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
  
   attack at that date had been gathered by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park
  Bletchley Park
  Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
  
  , however the target was assumed to be London. The true target was only determined on the afternoon immediately preceding the night of the attack, hence a warning could not have been sent without revealing the extent of the Allied codebreaking success. It is possible that more advanced warning and careful planning could have enabled some mitigation of the effects of the bombing, however this idea is speculative at best.
• The name Z'ha'dum
  Z'ha'dum
  Z'ha'dum is the final episode of the third season of the science fiction television series Babylon 5.-Teaser:Anna Sheridan, John Sheridan's lost wife, returns to the station, unexpectedly showing up at Sheridan's room, much to the shock and anxiety of Delenn. Anna attempts to get close to...
  
   can be seen as a homage to Tolkien
  J. R. R. Tolkien
  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
  
  's Khazad-dûm (Moria) in Middle Earth. Just as Khazad-dûm has been abandoned for centuries (or millienia), and is now inhabited by an ancient evil; so too Z'ha'dum, once the home of a mighty civilization, is now the home of an ancient and deadly evil.