Michael Garibaldi is a lead fictional character in the universe of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, played by Jerry Doyle.
Character history Overview During most of Babylon 5's five seasons, Garibaldi is the Chief of Security on board the space station Babylon 5. He holds the rank of Chief Warrant Officer. During the fourth season he suddenly resigned as Security Chief; he then begins working for Edgars Industries on Mars, one of the largest corporations on the planet. During the fifth and final season of Babylon 5 he was the Director of Covert Intelligence, a post similar to the present-day CIA Director, for the new Interstellar Alliance. Although friendly with the other crew members, he is very much his own man.
This independence leads him into great danger numerous times during the series. Like most of the characters on the series, Garibaldi is a complex person. On the positive side he is loyal, trustworthy, brave, shrewd, thorough in his job duties, and a tough and skilled soldier with small arms, in hand-to-hand combat, or in the cockpit of a Starfury fighter. He possesses a lively sense of humor, enjoys watching old twentieth-century cartoons such as "Daffy Duck" (Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century) who is referred to as a "household god of frustration" for Garibaldi in a conversation between Zack Allan and G'Kar, loves twentieth-century motorcycles, and generally has an easygoing, laid-back personality when he's not on duty.
However, he can also (ironically, given his suspicious nature) be too trusting of close friends and aides, and his tendency towards alcoholism and self-destructive behavior is a constant struggle for him throughout the series. Of the major characters on Babylon 5 Garibaldi is in many ways the most "down-to-earth" and "ordinary"; he often sides with the working-class humans on the station and in turn is considered by them to be a kindred spirit. He loves Italian food and often cuts secret deals with Babylon 5 dockworkers to bring expensive Italian foods onto the station. The deals are secret because of the disapproval of Dr. Stephen Franklin, B5's medical chief and a close friend of Garibaldi. Dr. Franklin disapproves of Garibaldi's love of fatty foods, although on at least one occasion he agrees to eat an Italian meal (bagna càuda) cooked by Garibaldi.
Early life and career Michael Alfredo Garibaldi was born in the Bronx, New York, Earth. He was the son of Alfredo Garibaldi, who was an EarthForce infantryman, who retired at the rank of sergeant-major. Garibaldi was raised in the Catholic church; he would later say he was "raised a good Catholic boy". Later in life he became an agnostic but always maintained respect for the church. His grandmother was a Boston cop. Garibaldi inherited her Smith & Wesson .38 Special police revolver.
Garibaldi was an honest man. This honesty, and his refusal to "play along" with policies and actions he knew were illegal, got him into difficulties with corrupt officials on more than one occasion. During one incident, a landing pad had been rigged to explode; when it did, a close friend of Garibaldi's died. His friend's daughter blamed him for many years, and Garibaldi retreated into alcoholism.
During the bloody Earth–Minbari War Garibaldi was an infantryman (called "groundpounder" or "gropo") in EarthForce. He participated in a number of ground battles against the Minbari and managed to survive the war, a considerable accomplishment. However, his experiences led to a certain amount of distrust and dislike of pompous high-ranking officers, a fact which often got him into trouble with his superiors. However, his naturally suspicious and rebellious nature made him an excellent investigator and security officer. His alcoholism may also have been a coping mechanism stemming from some form of PTSD that he acquired during the war. Because of his bouts with alcohol & PTSD, he's often seen as a sympathetic character to fellow veterans of the war, giving them wide latitude when they commit minor infractions on his watch as B5 Chief of Security.
Garibaldi continued to have problems with alcoholism for a number of years, which got him fired from several jobs. Eventually he was able to bring his alcoholism under control. While piloting Jeffrey Sinclair over the surface of Mars, their shuttle malfunctioned and crashed. Garibaldi and Sinclair then had to trek across the planet's surface for several days in order to make it back to civilization, during the trek the two men became friends.
While on Mars, he also began a romantic relationship with Lise Hampton. She eventually broke up with him due to his repeated bouts of alcoholism and difficulties in keeping a job. However, she genuinely loved him and they continued to maintain a relationship on an "off and on" basis for nearly 15 years.
Babylon 5 First 3 seasons When Sinclair was picked to command Babylon 5, he asked Garibaldi to serve as chief of security. Lise refused to go with Garibaldi, and the two broke up at that point. Lise later was briefly married and had a daughter, but when she divorced her husband, Earth Alliance judges biased towards Earth natives took her daughter away from her in a trial.
Garibaldi became an excellent chief of security over the next few years. He managed to keep his alcoholism under control (he is often seen refusing free liquor and drinking water instead), and became well-liked and respected by the security forces that he commanded. As Security Chief he made it his duty to know every nook and corner of the station where criminals could possibly hide and operate, and he also worked hard to know and keep track of every leader and member of human and alien organized-crime groups on the station. His presence alone was often enough to intimidate would-be criminals and evildoers from carrying out their plans, or to confessing to their crimes.
During Garibaldi's second year, he discovered a plot to assassinate Earth Alliance President Luis Santiago. When he confronted the plotters on the station, Garibaldi was shot in the back by his second-in-command, whom he had implicitly trusted and trained. Even though he managed to let Commander Sinclair know about the assassination plot, the news came too late as EarthForce One, the President's starship, soon exploded, with the President on board.
For the next several weeks Garibaldi was in a coma and near death, despite Dr. Stephen Franklin's best efforts. Franklin explained that he felt that a person in such circumstances could come to a point where they'd lose the will to live, and the body would then stop cooperating. Franklin felt that the debate was going on somewhere inside Garibaldi's mind.
Franklin eventually decided to try an alien healing device, which he had confiscated from its previous owner, on Garibaldi. Both he and John Sheridan donated life energy, which the machine transferred to Garibaldi. Once this was done, Garibaldi eventually emerged from his coma. Garibaldi discovered that Sinclair was gone, and that Sheridan was the new commanding officer. Telepath Talia Winters was able to help him discover who had attacked him. With this information, Garibaldi's former aide was arrested. The new president, Morgan Clark, recalled the aide back to Earth, but the aide disappeared en route. Although Garibaldi was suspicious of Sheridan at first, he eventually came to trust him.
Garibaldi struggled with the decision whether to return to his job or not. He felt that being shot in the back said something about the type of security officer he was, but Garibaldi eventually decided to return. For the next two years, Garibaldi continued to serve as chief of security. He became good friends with Sheridan. When President Clark began turning the Earth Alliance into a dictatorship, and with the reemergence of the Shadows, Garibaldi became the liaison between Babylon 5 and the Anla'Shok, or Rangers, upon receiving a message from Sinclair, who had since become the leader of the organization upon being posted to Minbar, a side duty that was known to the Rangers and a select few Sinclair felt he could trust, including Garibaldi.
When Nightwatch, a sinister police force created by President Clark to expose and arrest "traitors to Earth", began to infiltrate station security, Garibaldi refused to cooperate with them. Garibaldi eventually helped to locate, identify, and capture the members of Nightwatch on the station. He then oversaw a security force that included Narn replacements. When Sheridan withdrew Babylon 5 from the increasingly fascist Earth Alliance in the episode "Severed Dreams", the station was soon attacked by a fleet of EarthForce warships loyal to President Clark. During the battle a force of Earth Marines boarded and attempted to take over the station. Garibaldi led the station's security forces in a defence of the station, after a bitter and bloody fight the invading marines were defeated and forced to surrender. Initially, Garibaldi was shown to have broken his leg during the fight. But when the actor Jerry Doyle broke his arm during filming, in the next episode he was shown wearing a sling - Garibaldi explained this as that he fractured his wrist and forearm during the fight, but had initially not thought it bad enough to let Dr. Franklin put it in a cast.
Season 4 When the year came to the end, Sheridan went to Z'ha'dum. A Shadow attack force arrived at the station. Garibaldi went out in a fighter to protect the station. When Sheridan detonated the White Star - which had two fusion bombs on it - over the Shadow capital city, the force withdrew. Garibaldi was taken on board a Shadow vessel.
The Shadows used Psi-Corps personnel to reprogram humans. Alfred Bester diverted Garibaldi's transport to a Psi-Corps facility of his choosing, and spent the next two weeks carefully reprogramming him to uncover a conspiracy against the telepaths. After ensuring he remembered nothing, he was released unconscious onto an empty ship near Babylon 5. At about the same time, a revived Sheridan came back to Babylon 5.
During the buildup for the final attack on the Shadows, Garibaldi's mood changed. While he returned to duty as security chief, Garibaldi no longer had any enthusiasm for the job. Zack Allan thought that he had just been through a lot and he would recover sooner or later.
After the Shadow War was over, Garibaldi received a coded message that activated his programming. He resigned from his job as chief of security to work as an independent investigator over the next several months, helping people find what they had lost in the war. He increasingly came into conflict with Babylon 5 staff, violently confronting Sheridan on two occasions. Garibaldi rationalized his hostility towards Sheridan as a concern that he was developing a cult of personality around him and saw himself as the second coming.