On Babylon Five, Captain Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) runs into Ambassador Delenn (Mira Furlan) at the Universe Today Kiosk. She subscribes to Eye on Minbar to know how Minbar is seen by humans, and she sometimes finds information the Minbari government has not bothered to give her. On Mars, an injured man named Lee (Danny de la Paz) stumbles through the sewers and runs into Derek (Douglas Bennett) who offers to take him to a hospital, but Lee declines. As he dies, he passes a data crystal to Derek and asks him to take it to Babylon Five.
Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) meets Captain Sheridan in the Babylon Five gardens and turns on a jamming device. He asks Sheridan about bringing telepath Talia Winters (Andrea Thompson) into the resistance group. Sheridan agrees that Talia seems quite uncomfortable with the Psi Corps now and they set up a meeting.
Commander Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) is having a meeting with Talia when she is told that a ship has come in through the jump gate but is not moving. Winters tells Ivanova of the problems in her quarters and Ivanova offers to put her up for the night. In C&C, Ivanova notices that the ship is damaged and has it towed to a hangar. Garibaldi arrives as Doctor Franklin (Richard Biggs) and the med team remove an unconscious Earth woman from the ship, and Garibaldi recognizes her as telepath Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallmann) who was the previous station telepath until she was recalled to Earth. Garibaldi tells Sheridan that she was the only telepath to read Kosh. She recovers in Medlab and immediately demands to see Sheridan because one of the command staff is a traitor.
In a meeting, she reveals to all that she was questioned for two years about what she scanned from Kosh. She escaped to Mars and to get money to get to Vorlon territory joined a revolutionary group on Mars, but a colleague was murdered when he uncovered a secret Psi Corps sleeper program. An agent could be activated telepathically. She has the triggering password and intends to send it to everyone on the Babylon Five command staff, to find out who it is. Sheridan says he will consider it and Garibaldi puts her in a holding cell.
Later, in Hydroponics, Sheridan confides in Delenn and she places her hand on his, but he is called away. Garibaldi tells him Lyta’s story checks out. Talia Winters makes herself at home in Ivanova’s quarters. She tells Ivanova that she knew Lyta Alexander a long time ago, but not well. As Lyta is being transferred to another cell, the lights go out and she escapes. Her guards are shot. Sheridan is not pleased. Lyta sends an anonymous call to Delenn, who reports to Sheridan later that Lyta will come in if the entire command staff are present. Sheridan agrees.
Talia Winters moves back to her own quarters. Ivanova confesses to Sheridan that she is so vehemently against being scanned because she is a latent telepath herself. He remembers a dream image of her, sent to him by Kosh, with a raven on her shoulder. Delenn brings Lyta into the command staff meeting. She is going to search for the spy by sending the password to each member, one at a time, Ivanova last at Sheridan’s insistence. Lyta can feel Ivanova blocking her, so she knows she is telepathic, but she is not the agent she is searching for. When Talia walks in, Lyta sends her the password and she becomes violent. She is dragged away, raving about Psi Corps.
Talia has undoubtedly told the Psi Corps about Franklin’s involvement in the telepath underground railroad, but they know about the sleeper agent program. Ivanova visits Talia in the lockup and finds only a sinister personality. Lyta visits Kosh and tells him his secrets are safely locked away in her mind. Kosh grants her a glimpse of his true form, but we don’t see it.
Andrea Thompson, unable to get more screen time, decided to leave the show for a co-starring role on NYPD Blue just about the time her character was becoming more important. Talia, throughout the series, has been shown in mirrors quite often, hinting at her secret side. Patricia Tallmann (Lyta Alexander) appeared on three Star Trek series and was stunt double for Laura Dern in the Jurassic Park movies. She was executive producer and girlfriend to J. Michael Straczynski. Just as Jeffrey Sinclair was replaced as B-5 commander by John Sheridan, only to return later in the story, so was Lyta replaced by Talia, only to return later on, as the plot thickened. Sadly, this knocked the show into the scenario, common in those days, of the star-crossed gay couple. The relationship between Ivanova and Talia is only hinted at, but quickly falls apart. Even the lovely partnership between Willow and Amber on Buffy ends with Amber’s death. And wasn’t Joss Whedon raked over the coals for it.