Babylon 5 Rewatch: “Atonement”

Delenn must go to Minbar to justify to her clan the decision to marry a human. It involves a living flashback to her time serving Dukhat up until his death, and the end result is some nasty revelations about Delenn’s role in the start of the Earth-Minbari War. The Babylon 5 Rewatch makes “Atonement.”

An excerpt:

A big reason why this episode works so well is the excellent casting of Reiner Schöne as Dukhat. After hearing several times about what a great leader Dukhat was, and how devastating his loss was, the casting of the role was crucial to making this episode work—and, for that matter, to make the entire Earth-Minbari War work as a plot point. Schöne absolutely knocks it out of the park, giving us a truly charismatic leader.

Much credit also goes to Mira Furlan, especially for her portrayal of Delenn as a very young acolyte. She convincingly gives us Delenn at three very different points in her life, and as usual inhabits the complexity of the character with verve and style.