beccatoria (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccatoria) wrote2009-01-24 09:14 pm
beccatoria) wrote2009-01-24 09:14 pm
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BSG: A Disquiet Follows my Soul
Well, this is gonna be a weird one to write up. I basically watch BSG for the mythology and robotic and philosophical stuff and this was largely about the civilian fleet and their political struggles and character I don't care much about (Adama, Zarek, Gaeta). This isn't a criticism, because it's a valid part of the show and it's a good thing that the show isn't forgetting about it.
I actually think it's also a very compelling story. The sort of complex civilian versus military storytelling that we often got in season one and then kind of lost when RDM didn't have the time to flesh out the civilian fleet and they often turned out as strawmen for the episode of the week. (I'm looking at you Demand Peace. I'm looking at you Dana Delaney. I'm looking at you Sagittaron fundamentalists.)
The basic issue here is a very good one. The Fleet don't trust the cylons. But these cylons genuinely are the only group of cylons they have even the tiniest bit of common ground with - after all, they fought with them, destroyed their own resurrection hub with no hope of their species surviving over the course of generations, and are just as frakked as the rest of them if Cavil shows up. But. They're cylons. They recanted late in the game; they're dangerous; the people are angry. Why should they care?
And this volatile, important situation is being manipulated all over the place by Zarek, who I still can't really get a handle on except to say that while I'm sure he genuinely believes the cylons are dangerous, I also believe that this is a power play to him; a way to punch the Man in the nose and put in place his own vision of What Should Be. That's the only consistant thing Zarek's ever done - ignored the practical issues of the cylon threat to turn them and the destruction of the Colonies into an idealistic issue about reshaping Colonial society.
And on the other hand, this volatile, important situation is being exacerbated through nigh-on criminal negligence at the hands of Adama and especially Laura Roslin.
I mean, Adama handles things poorly. It's totally in character for him to make things worse by just refusing to even contemplate relieving Tigh of duty because now that he's sorted out his issues with his BFF everyone else should fall in line. Of course he's going to send in marines to arrest a president/acting president he doesn't like. Of course he's going to realise the problem with Laura and then deal with it by trying to pawn off everyone else until he can deal with her in the way he thinks is best, which is actually known as, in phase one, gently hoping a few appeals to her sense of duty will fix the situation and, in phase two, enabling her.
But Laura. Oh dear.
Don't worry, flist, I still want to smack Adama in the mouth and I still love Laura. But really, the woman is having a total breakdown. Yes, partly this is due to the medical euphoria she's experiencing, but she's made a very conscious decision to ride that wave and completely ignore everything that's happening around her.
She's not running around the ship and kissing admirals and shunning her treatments because she's suddenly discovered some great freedom and love of life in her final days. This isn't some justifiable "right to live a little" because it's someone else's turn to carry the ball.
Remember Dee? And how, once she knew she was going to die, she became superhappy and started having this perfect day and helping people and being flirty and delightful?
Laura just has longer before the inevitable death occurs.
Laura is having a perfect day because she's going to die. And she's doing it at the expense of the Fleet and her people because it's self-destructive and Laura Roslin wants to destroy herself, and her image. Bill Adama gets drunk and actually starts reading emo poetry.
Laura Roslin starts jogging around the Battlestar in a terminally ill condition metaphorically yelling, "LET THEM EAT CAKE!" because she's acting out. Because she's having a breakdown and has cunningly disguised it as some kind of liberation so Adama will be mostly blind to it and blind to the rest because it inovles that sex he's wanted forever and because he's acting out too by becoming an alcoholic. I assume he was constantly brushing his teeth to get rid of the alcohol on his breath.
For people who are A/R 'shippers, and in an attempt to be respectful of canon, I'm not trying to say that the things she's doing aren't things she secretly wants to do. I'm not saying she doesn't want to sleep with Adama (although I really would rather not have seen it).
But doing so now, in this manner, at this time? She's not doing it for healthy reasons. She's doing it because she's so broken and so destructive she's actually trying to do the one thing that was antithetical to her before: put herself first. And not only that, because everyone must do that sometimes, but put herself first at the expense of her people.
I'm not really angry with her. Even though she's doing a terrible job right now and even though the reason I love her so much is that she doesn't behave this way when so many people would. I guess because after four years of not behaving that way, I figure she's earned this character arc because I'm convinced it won't last. It's a side of Laura we haven't seen, that maybe we need to. Like how before Baltar's interrogation, we'd never seen her just lose it and give in to rage. We've never seen her totally faithless and self-destructive.
And yes, I confess that as an anti-A/R shipper, I do take some solace in the fact that my most honest reading of this situation is that she's using sex-with-Bill as a form of self-destructive suicidal insanity.
*must not make Bill macro: I like mah wives like I like mah dautrs: SUICIDAL YAYZ!*
Finally, at least she had the presence of mind to offer to resign the Presidency. But much like Lee had to be president because Adama hates Zarek, so to much Laura remain president while clearly unfit for office because Adama hates Zarek.
I missed Kara, but I did love her scene with Gaeta. I mean, he was picking a crazy fight and she was all kinds of offensive, but I thought both of them played it really brilliantly until Gaeta had to say, "reckoning," because I find that word very cheesy. Like, if the Transformers sequel wasn't called "The Rise of the Fallen," it probably would have been called, "The Fall of the Reckoning," or something.
But anyway, the point, the scene. Kara's problem has always been that when someone baits her, and she knows it, she sees it as an excuse to let fly and not disappoint them because she was baited. It's still her problem, and it's still awesome to watch. I think just because both of those characters were so angry and hurt.
There was a lot of good world-building in this episode, actually. I found it gave me far more of a feel for the state of the Fleet than the last one which was all high drama and people punching each other in corridors. But...yeah. Kara and Gaeta in the mess hall was a macrocosm of all the hurt in the world and I really liked that moment.
I just wish we had more of Kara's crazy space destiny and the Opera House and stuff. But I'm not worried. I know we'll get back to the crazy story of the Religious Women after we're done with the boring story of the Militant Men (I'm being harsh; as I said, I actually found this episode quite interesting, it just didn't tear into my heart like it would have if it were focused on other themes).
I missed Tory and Sam. I imagine they're on the basestar since it seems Tyrol has also been at least partly staying there/spending time there. Selfishly I wish we'd seen more of them integrating into the cylon fleet, and those discussions where Tyrol convinced them that Adama was a man of his word, etc. I guess I understand why it was cut. It's probably better for the show overall to occasionally pull back from a cylon-o-centric focus, but it's not better for me. ;)
The idea of the cylon being full citizens and getting a seat on the quorum is AWESOME. I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally understand why the ENTIRE FLEET would go crazy about that, but just, from my perspective, it's awesome and I hope it happens.
They've really swapped Tyrol and Tigh haven't they? They started S4 with Tigh as the widow with huge guilt and nothing really, except his insanity and his guilt to keep him going, while Tyrol had a wife and child and acceptance and respect in his work. Now Tyrol's lost Cally, his job, and also Nick, while Tigh has Caprica and Flipper and an important job despite his cylonicity.
I actually have severe problems with retconning Nicky's paternity. Just from a character point of view, Cally was SO disturbingly in love with the Chief, that I find it hard to buy she had an affair with Hot Dog after they were together for so short a time. Weirdly I'd prefer she was blind drunk and barely remembered it even though that has its own set of dodgy ramifications.
Secondly, it now makes her attempts to airlock Nicky and herself make SO MUCH LESS SENSE and that was...previously such an impressive and painful piece of BSG. Post-partum and psychotic Cally trying to deal with the fact her son was half what she hated, that she loved him so completely while hating half of what he was, that she could never actually get rid of that either because he's her son, just, all of it... That's why she numbly walked down to the airlock. That's why she took Nicky. It never struck me as her thinking that two years of marriage to a cylon and loving a cylon were worth ending her life over. It was the crazy complication Nicky represented, and now, I don't know what to think. It seems so...sick? I don't want to judge when she was clearly mentally ill and panicking, but I really don't understand why her instinct wasn't to tell someone.
I guess it just completely undermines the construction of that scene and takes Cally from horrific but sympathetic to WTF?
I'm also just plain sad that Nicky's not a hybrid. I liked the multiple hybrids. Hera is still important because she's still the first. I wouldn't have been upset if Nicky didn't have a big destiny like her, and there are also a bajillion ways to handwave his being different because he's half final five cylon not a Hera-style hybrid.
Also, couldn't we have somehow changed it so that Cally honestly believed that Nicky was the Chief's kid? Like she slept with Hot Dog that one time, but Nicky looks so much like Galen that she never really gave that much thought and always figured he must be her husband's son, or something? That would at least keep her characterisation in Ties that Bind intact, and it's not like they needed Cottle to already know about Nicky. He came in with a medical condition, they could have run tests on Tyrol to see if he could like, potentially be able to donate a kidney when he's older or something and found out that way.
This just makes Cally a deceptive cheater in a series where there are already two other marriages with women who are, apparently, serial cheaters (Kara and Ellen, though I'm still not convinced Sam's comment at Lee wasn't some form of trash-talking/damage control).
It's not a storyline I'm necessarily averse to, because I think in the case of the Tighs it works well, but three times guys? It starts to look skeezy. And I start to wonder what RDM's obsession with romanticising relationships where the guy is mad faithful in love while the girl sleeps around is all about.
Basically I'm just disappointed. I liked that the boundries were blurring and getting confused and there were multiple hybrids and such and now there are fewere and that makes me sad.
Silver linings include:
1) If they don't drop the storyline faster than something that has to do with Caprica Six, and we just never see Nicky or Hot Dog again, NICKY HAS TWO DADDIES! Okay, they're not the two daddies I would choose (that would be Chief and Sam) but I WILL TAKE WHAT I CAN GET.
2) BSG's continued destruction of the nuclear family as a healthy default for domestic stability and happiness continues to entertain me. And I say this as someone who comes from a very happy nuclear family - I'm not trying to break it down personally, I just like that in BSG all the happiest families are extended, adopted messy things and even the one nuclear family we do have - the Agathons - have a daughter with too many other surrogate mothers to count, and are themselves a threat to the traditional nuclear family of the Galacticaverse by virtue of being half-robot.
But I'm still feeling sulky.
To talk about the robotic baby that apparently still IS a robotic baby: FLIPPER! HOW I MISSED YOU! I AM MILDLY DISAPPOINTED YOU ARE APPARENTLY A BOY BUT WHATEVER.
ISHAY. I'M LOOKING AT YOU. YOU BETTER NOT HURT THAT ADORABLE BALL OF INCESTUOUS ROBOTIC FETUS OR I WILL CUT SOMETHING. PROBABLY YOU.
No, really. I'm hoping that ominous shot was just a set up for PERIL which in turn may mean some actual screen time for Caprica Six beyond like, two minutes every four or five episodes. But Show, listen, I will stay with you through much, but if you kill Flipper, I will cry. I will cry and it will be YOUR FAULT and they will not be the good kind of tears either.
As to the Caprica/Tigh scene, I'd probably have more of an issue with the whole fact that Tigh is, apparently, suddenly on board with Flipper and being all hand-holdy and not-chokey with Caprica because I don't want that relationship to just magically work. But I'm willing to go with it for the following reasons:
1) While I hope she stays dead, I really think Ellen will probably be back and at that point, HILARIOUS HIJINCKS may ensue. So like, I can handle things being unrealistically good right now if it's a build up to LATER.
2) Caprica Six did not get dumped. This would be painful for me.
3) I kind of can sort of maybe see it if I squint, in that, while I think Saul thinks Ellen is forever dead, the fact that she was a cylon is probably, in some ways, a weight off his mind. Since in addition to killing her, he was also wrestling with his betrayal of her in terms of species. I think there's some peace to be found there in terms of his ability to begin to accept - at least a little - that he is a cylon. So I can kind of believe he's in a better place right now.
4) It brought the Cottle.
5) I am ashamed to admit, that entire scene was kind of adorable. I just want to smush them all together and make kissing noises, so I'm grateful that reasons 1 - 3 have given me an excuse to just go with it for this episode and not worry about the Wider Statements It Is Making.
But srsly, Ishay. Join Gaeta's revolution if you must but I WAS NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE KNIFE, BITCH.
Finally, Gaeta. You do know how to pick your presidential boyfriends, sweetheart. I really...I don't know what's gonna happen when the exact thing that happened with Baltar happens again but this time Gaeta can't console himself in the knowledge that he was secretly on the right side all along. I'm probably a bad person for not caring more.
I feel bad for having nothing to say about Lee but basically all he did this episode was wander around.
I actually think it's also a very compelling story. The sort of complex civilian versus military storytelling that we often got in season one and then kind of lost when RDM didn't have the time to flesh out the civilian fleet and they often turned out as strawmen for the episode of the week. (I'm looking at you Demand Peace. I'm looking at you Dana Delaney. I'm looking at you Sagittaron fundamentalists.)
The basic issue here is a very good one. The Fleet don't trust the cylons. But these cylons genuinely are the only group of cylons they have even the tiniest bit of common ground with - after all, they fought with them, destroyed their own resurrection hub with no hope of their species surviving over the course of generations, and are just as frakked as the rest of them if Cavil shows up. But. They're cylons. They recanted late in the game; they're dangerous; the people are angry. Why should they care?
And this volatile, important situation is being manipulated all over the place by Zarek, who I still can't really get a handle on except to say that while I'm sure he genuinely believes the cylons are dangerous, I also believe that this is a power play to him; a way to punch the Man in the nose and put in place his own vision of What Should Be. That's the only consistant thing Zarek's ever done - ignored the practical issues of the cylon threat to turn them and the destruction of the Colonies into an idealistic issue about reshaping Colonial society.
And on the other hand, this volatile, important situation is being exacerbated through nigh-on criminal negligence at the hands of Adama and especially Laura Roslin.
I mean, Adama handles things poorly. It's totally in character for him to make things worse by just refusing to even contemplate relieving Tigh of duty because now that he's sorted out his issues with his BFF everyone else should fall in line. Of course he's going to send in marines to arrest a president/acting president he doesn't like. Of course he's going to realise the problem with Laura and then deal with it by trying to pawn off everyone else until he can deal with her in the way he thinks is best, which is actually known as, in phase one, gently hoping a few appeals to her sense of duty will fix the situation and, in phase two, enabling her.
But Laura. Oh dear.
Don't worry, flist, I still want to smack Adama in the mouth and I still love Laura. But really, the woman is having a total breakdown. Yes, partly this is due to the medical euphoria she's experiencing, but she's made a very conscious decision to ride that wave and completely ignore everything that's happening around her.
She's not running around the ship and kissing admirals and shunning her treatments because she's suddenly discovered some great freedom and love of life in her final days. This isn't some justifiable "right to live a little" because it's someone else's turn to carry the ball.
Remember Dee? And how, once she knew she was going to die, she became superhappy and started having this perfect day and helping people and being flirty and delightful?
Laura just has longer before the inevitable death occurs.
Laura is having a perfect day because she's going to die. And she's doing it at the expense of the Fleet and her people because it's self-destructive and Laura Roslin wants to destroy herself, and her image. Bill Adama gets drunk and actually starts reading emo poetry.
Laura Roslin starts jogging around the Battlestar in a terminally ill condition metaphorically yelling, "LET THEM EAT CAKE!" because she's acting out. Because she's having a breakdown and has cunningly disguised it as some kind of liberation so Adama will be mostly blind to it and blind to the rest because it inovles that sex he's wanted forever and because he's acting out too by becoming an alcoholic. I assume he was constantly brushing his teeth to get rid of the alcohol on his breath.
For people who are A/R 'shippers, and in an attempt to be respectful of canon, I'm not trying to say that the things she's doing aren't things she secretly wants to do. I'm not saying she doesn't want to sleep with Adama (although I really would rather not have seen it).
But doing so now, in this manner, at this time? She's not doing it for healthy reasons. She's doing it because she's so broken and so destructive she's actually trying to do the one thing that was antithetical to her before: put herself first. And not only that, because everyone must do that sometimes, but put herself first at the expense of her people.
I'm not really angry with her. Even though she's doing a terrible job right now and even though the reason I love her so much is that she doesn't behave this way when so many people would. I guess because after four years of not behaving that way, I figure she's earned this character arc because I'm convinced it won't last. It's a side of Laura we haven't seen, that maybe we need to. Like how before Baltar's interrogation, we'd never seen her just lose it and give in to rage. We've never seen her totally faithless and self-destructive.
And yes, I confess that as an anti-A/R shipper, I do take some solace in the fact that my most honest reading of this situation is that she's using sex-with-Bill as a form of self-destructive suicidal insanity.
*must not make Bill macro: I like mah wives like I like mah dautrs: SUICIDAL YAYZ!*
Finally, at least she had the presence of mind to offer to resign the Presidency. But much like Lee had to be president because Adama hates Zarek, so to much Laura remain president while clearly unfit for office because Adama hates Zarek.
I missed Kara, but I did love her scene with Gaeta. I mean, he was picking a crazy fight and she was all kinds of offensive, but I thought both of them played it really brilliantly until Gaeta had to say, "reckoning," because I find that word very cheesy. Like, if the Transformers sequel wasn't called "The Rise of the Fallen," it probably would have been called, "The Fall of the Reckoning," or something.
But anyway, the point, the scene. Kara's problem has always been that when someone baits her, and she knows it, she sees it as an excuse to let fly and not disappoint them because she was baited. It's still her problem, and it's still awesome to watch. I think just because both of those characters were so angry and hurt.
There was a lot of good world-building in this episode, actually. I found it gave me far more of a feel for the state of the Fleet than the last one which was all high drama and people punching each other in corridors. But...yeah. Kara and Gaeta in the mess hall was a macrocosm of all the hurt in the world and I really liked that moment.
I just wish we had more of Kara's crazy space destiny and the Opera House and stuff. But I'm not worried. I know we'll get back to the crazy story of the Religious Women after we're done with the boring story of the Militant Men (I'm being harsh; as I said, I actually found this episode quite interesting, it just didn't tear into my heart like it would have if it were focused on other themes).
I missed Tory and Sam. I imagine they're on the basestar since it seems Tyrol has also been at least partly staying there/spending time there. Selfishly I wish we'd seen more of them integrating into the cylon fleet, and those discussions where Tyrol convinced them that Adama was a man of his word, etc. I guess I understand why it was cut. It's probably better for the show overall to occasionally pull back from a cylon-o-centric focus, but it's not better for me. ;)
The idea of the cylon being full citizens and getting a seat on the quorum is AWESOME. I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally understand why the ENTIRE FLEET would go crazy about that, but just, from my perspective, it's awesome and I hope it happens.
They've really swapped Tyrol and Tigh haven't they? They started S4 with Tigh as the widow with huge guilt and nothing really, except his insanity and his guilt to keep him going, while Tyrol had a wife and child and acceptance and respect in his work. Now Tyrol's lost Cally, his job, and also Nick, while Tigh has Caprica and Flipper and an important job despite his cylonicity.
I actually have severe problems with retconning Nicky's paternity. Just from a character point of view, Cally was SO disturbingly in love with the Chief, that I find it hard to buy she had an affair with Hot Dog after they were together for so short a time. Weirdly I'd prefer she was blind drunk and barely remembered it even though that has its own set of dodgy ramifications.
Secondly, it now makes her attempts to airlock Nicky and herself make SO MUCH LESS SENSE and that was...previously such an impressive and painful piece of BSG. Post-partum and psychotic Cally trying to deal with the fact her son was half what she hated, that she loved him so completely while hating half of what he was, that she could never actually get rid of that either because he's her son, just, all of it... That's why she numbly walked down to the airlock. That's why she took Nicky. It never struck me as her thinking that two years of marriage to a cylon and loving a cylon were worth ending her life over. It was the crazy complication Nicky represented, and now, I don't know what to think. It seems so...sick? I don't want to judge when she was clearly mentally ill and panicking, but I really don't understand why her instinct wasn't to tell someone.
I guess it just completely undermines the construction of that scene and takes Cally from horrific but sympathetic to WTF?
I'm also just plain sad that Nicky's not a hybrid. I liked the multiple hybrids. Hera is still important because she's still the first. I wouldn't have been upset if Nicky didn't have a big destiny like her, and there are also a bajillion ways to handwave his being different because he's half final five cylon not a Hera-style hybrid.
Also, couldn't we have somehow changed it so that Cally honestly believed that Nicky was the Chief's kid? Like she slept with Hot Dog that one time, but Nicky looks so much like Galen that she never really gave that much thought and always figured he must be her husband's son, or something? That would at least keep her characterisation in Ties that Bind intact, and it's not like they needed Cottle to already know about Nicky. He came in with a medical condition, they could have run tests on Tyrol to see if he could like, potentially be able to donate a kidney when he's older or something and found out that way.
This just makes Cally a deceptive cheater in a series where there are already two other marriages with women who are, apparently, serial cheaters (Kara and Ellen, though I'm still not convinced Sam's comment at Lee wasn't some form of trash-talking/damage control).
It's not a storyline I'm necessarily averse to, because I think in the case of the Tighs it works well, but three times guys? It starts to look skeezy. And I start to wonder what RDM's obsession with romanticising relationships where the guy is mad faithful in love while the girl sleeps around is all about.
Basically I'm just disappointed. I liked that the boundries were blurring and getting confused and there were multiple hybrids and such and now there are fewere and that makes me sad.
Silver linings include:
1) If they don't drop the storyline faster than something that has to do with Caprica Six, and we just never see Nicky or Hot Dog again, NICKY HAS TWO DADDIES! Okay, they're not the two daddies I would choose (that would be Chief and Sam) but I WILL TAKE WHAT I CAN GET.
2) BSG's continued destruction of the nuclear family as a healthy default for domestic stability and happiness continues to entertain me. And I say this as someone who comes from a very happy nuclear family - I'm not trying to break it down personally, I just like that in BSG all the happiest families are extended, adopted messy things and even the one nuclear family we do have - the Agathons - have a daughter with too many other surrogate mothers to count, and are themselves a threat to the traditional nuclear family of the Galacticaverse by virtue of being half-robot.
But I'm still feeling sulky.
To talk about the robotic baby that apparently still IS a robotic baby: FLIPPER! HOW I MISSED YOU! I AM MILDLY DISAPPOINTED YOU ARE APPARENTLY A BOY BUT WHATEVER.
ISHAY. I'M LOOKING AT YOU. YOU BETTER NOT HURT THAT ADORABLE BALL OF INCESTUOUS ROBOTIC FETUS OR I WILL CUT SOMETHING. PROBABLY YOU.
No, really. I'm hoping that ominous shot was just a set up for PERIL which in turn may mean some actual screen time for Caprica Six beyond like, two minutes every four or five episodes. But Show, listen, I will stay with you through much, but if you kill Flipper, I will cry. I will cry and it will be YOUR FAULT and they will not be the good kind of tears either.
As to the Caprica/Tigh scene, I'd probably have more of an issue with the whole fact that Tigh is, apparently, suddenly on board with Flipper and being all hand-holdy and not-chokey with Caprica because I don't want that relationship to just magically work. But I'm willing to go with it for the following reasons:
1) While I hope she stays dead, I really think Ellen will probably be back and at that point, HILARIOUS HIJINCKS may ensue. So like, I can handle things being unrealistically good right now if it's a build up to LATER.
2) Caprica Six did not get dumped. This would be painful for me.
3) I kind of can sort of maybe see it if I squint, in that, while I think Saul thinks Ellen is forever dead, the fact that she was a cylon is probably, in some ways, a weight off his mind. Since in addition to killing her, he was also wrestling with his betrayal of her in terms of species. I think there's some peace to be found there in terms of his ability to begin to accept - at least a little - that he is a cylon. So I can kind of believe he's in a better place right now.
4) It brought the Cottle.
5) I am ashamed to admit, that entire scene was kind of adorable. I just want to smush them all together and make kissing noises, so I'm grateful that reasons 1 - 3 have given me an excuse to just go with it for this episode and not worry about the Wider Statements It Is Making.
But srsly, Ishay. Join Gaeta's revolution if you must but I WAS NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE KNIFE, BITCH.
Finally, Gaeta. You do know how to pick your presidential boyfriends, sweetheart. I really...I don't know what's gonna happen when the exact thing that happened with Baltar happens again but this time Gaeta can't console himself in the knowledge that he was secretly on the right side all along. I'm probably a bad person for not caring more.
I feel bad for having nothing to say about Lee but basically all he did this episode was wander around.
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Oh good...I can watch it at your house! :)
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Laura is having a perfect day because she's going to die. And she's doing it at the expense of the Fleet and her people because it's self-destructive
Yes (and I think the burst of renewed health/rejection of medication is usually a sign that death is right around the frakking corner--yet I'm sure she's around till the finale...I wish we knew how much time is elapsing on Galactica these days.) Anyway, yes, but isn't it kind of cool to see her self-destructive for once? I think that's what I liked about her this episode. Laura's been in a place of a lot of inaction in 4.0 because of her illness. I was excited for her to say no to that and be running and doing aerobics and shit.
Kara's problem has always been that when someone baits her, and she knows it, she sees it as an excuse to let fly and not disappoint them because she was baited. It's still her problem, and it's still awesome to watch.
Isn't it interesting that it's still her problem? We'd been seeing a calmer/saner Kara post Demetrius. This was very old School Starbuck. She's such a fabulous badass and I'm pleased that 4.5 seems to be showcasing her badassery once more. And I was proud of Gaeta/AJ holding his own.
The Cally/Nicky stuff. I think its crazy that she slept with Hot Dog. And I need to watch her death eppie over again because is it possible she was just intent on not leaving Nicky with her cylon husband? Although why would she let Tory take the baby then. But she was out of her mind. OK I just don't know. Am sad that chief's marriage was further shit upon and that he now has been stripped of everything. But I don't know if he's sad...or relieved.
The Tigh turnaround was mind-blowing. The shizzy is gonna hit the fan if/when Ellen returns!! I don't know how he magically got OK with Caprica either.
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I rarely pay attention to the political stuff unless it's super-important. All that mattered to me here was that Bill totally played Tom. That was interesting. And without Laura. Such a different Bill than last week.
(I'm looking at you Demand Peace. I'm looking at you Dana Delaney. I'm looking at you Sagittaron fundamentalists.)
And remember the sons of Ares? No? I'm trying to forget them attacking the women too. :-(
It's totally in character for him to make things worse by just refusing to even contemplate relieving Tigh of duty because now that he's sorted out his issues with his BFF everyone else should fall in line.
You are so right. If Tigh flips out or goes all Cylony or anything and endangers that fleet, it's all on Bill's head. Really.
but put herself first at the expense of her people.
I always wanted Laura to do this, you know? This was my Laura being a human being. But I didn't know I'd get it like this. She's not really Laura when she goes all to one side. The best thing about her was her human, womanliness balanced with the ruthless leader. She's just not right all one way or the other. And it's sad. :-(
I mean, he was picking a crazy fight and she was all kinds of offensive, but I thought both of them played it really brilliantly until Gaeta had to say, "reckoning," because I find that word very cheesy.
Hee! I liked 'reckoning'. He could have said "I'm going to eventually try to beat your ass with my prosthetic leg and probably die trying", so I thought using the word reckoning showed a bit of restraint. Hee! I'm not being completely serious but I can't because I love those crazy kids and that scene. :-D
Ishay does bear watching. She's a minor character we haven't seen in a long time. I'm just sayin'. I like her, though. She's patched these people together so many times, I can see why she's bitter. But if she dies, who will be Cottle's protege? It's not like there is a medical school around. I'm always thinking of the future.
I liked Nicky as hybrid too. Seriously, what's Hot Dog going to do with him? And it totally makes Cally's suicidalness even harder to explain.
I'm going to wait and see if there is more meaning to this in later eps. I liked baby Nicky and I'm a bit annoyed that we didn' t even see how he was doing in the ep later. Does he need a kidney? Will Hotdog give blood? BSG need to answer some questions!
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Bwahahahahah!
And yes, Bill won't let Laura resign because he hates Zarek THAT MUCH. Even though ultimately keeping Laura as a figurehead is going to work against him, I think.
I just wish we had more of Kara's crazy space destiny and the Opera House and stuff. But I'm not worried. I know we'll get back to the crazy story of the Religious Women after we're done with the boring story of the Militant Men (I'm being harsh; as I said, I actually found this episode quite interesting, it just didn't tear into my heart like it would have if it were focused on other themes).
Ditto to all this. I liked the episode but we're missing the stuff that keeps me hooked.
...makes her attempts to airlock Nicky and herself make SO MUCH LESS SENSE and that was...previously such an impressive and painful piece of BSG. Post-partum and psychotic Cally trying to deal with the fact her son was half what she hated, that she loved him so completely while hating half of what he was, that she could never actually get rid of that either because he's her son, just, all of it...
YES. *sigh* I'm not a fan of this particular decision, so I'm glad it wasn't a bigger part of this week's episode. Although Hotdog is always good for a laugh from me.
Also ditto re: flipper baby and his adorable parents--that scene had me grinning, even while I questioned the degree of cheesy sympathetic hand-holding we got from Tigh.
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Bill: *arf*
Laura: Good puppy.
You know I like them together, but you know that I've always believed their relationship to be as above. I know who's on top (but no, I didn't really need to see it, though Laura's boobs are lovely).
Kara/Gaeta: Oh you go Gaeta. I'm angry with him for being so bitter. Oh come on. Lost a leg and inadvertantly led a whole bunch of Colonials to their deaths by working with a Cylon? Pfft. That's nothing to start a mutiny over... >.>
Zarek: Glad to have you back and disturbing Teh Shit.
Quorum: I still hate you picky little bastards and am all for marshal law. BRING BACK THE CAIN.
Oh is that the title of the new Transformers movie? Indeed!
The Happy Couple: Pretty noteable, the lovie dovies (and for the record, I couldn't see the baby either, Tigh). And foralways I LOVE COTTLE for smoking around a pregnant mom, in the hospital with no ill intent. I bet he tells new moms to eat peanut butter too, the cuddly bastard.
Cally/Nicky/Tyrol/Hot Dog: I guess this was a necessary retcon to move Tyrol along somehow, but I'm not happy with it, even though I hated Cally. I don't want to see Tyrol go to the evil side of the dark side.
Baltar: Did he just turn his preaching around and bitch slap God? Did he just pick a fight with The Man??
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I'm with you on this one, my first thought when I saw Laura all smiling and happy was "Dee". Bill really is so blind to what's going on with her right now and she was TOTALLY playing him in the scene where she's stretching. Not that he's not part of what makes her happy here, but I just don't see anything healthy at all in their various coping mechanisms.
And on the other hand, this volatile, important situation is being exacerbated through nigh-on criminal negligence at the hands of Adama and especially Laura Roslin.
Yep. Oh, Laura.
The random shots of people were much more subtle in this episode than the emo-ness of all the extras last week. I also noticed a rather large military presence at Baltar's church. We seem to have 3 centers of power coalescing, The Zarek/Gaeta faction, Adama/Roslin and the Cylons, and Gaius Baltar. It'll be very interesting to see how he fits into this when the pieces start falling into place.
I'm just going to mentally circle your reaction to Nicky's new not!hybrid status. Nice summation of exactly what felt so weird about it. I would feel so much better if Cally hadn't known, because this seems like unnecessarily cruel manipulation of a dead character.
CAPRICA WAS IN THE EPISODE!! AND THEY DISCUSSED THE FLIPPER!BABY! Ahem. They were far more adorable than they had any right to be.
On a side note, I can see Ishay being a bit freaked out by her, she was being very Cylony here. But, DO NOT hurt the baby.
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I loved this episode precisely for its return to S1's conflict and military/civilian politics, though. The world ended again, even worse, there's no enemy to unite anyone, nobody's sure they even want to survive, and what happens? Squabbling and grandstanding and vendettas and a downward spiral disguised as idealism.
Zarek is a huge missed potential for me, has been right since his first appearance. Someone with his ideals for change would be so much more interesting as a sincere character, a foil for the harsh and dictatorial pragmatism of Roslin and Adama, than as a small-minded fool.
I love Cylons and weird mythology and all, but this episode reminded me why I first fell in love with BSG.
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Bwhahahahaha!!!
I do agree with you about Laura and about A/R here, to a point. I think that Laura wants to be doing here what we saw Dee doing last week, but whereas Dee actually seemed to be at peace with her decision, seemed truly to be enjoying her last day, Laura's just barely holding it together. Someone else (
My reading of the A/R sex differs from yours in that I think they've been sleeping together for quite some time now, which I think makes the fact that it's happening in this situation a little less sketchy overall (apparently EJO and MM agree with me, whereas RDM thinks this was their first time but admits it's open to interpretation). I still think that final scene was pretty much the most depressing thing ever, and I rather adore the fact that only on this show can happy post-coital cuddling from my favorite pairing be depressing. But it was all supposed to be Very Wrong in that moment and under those circumstances. Not that they were having sex, necessarily, but because they were abdicating their responsibility for the fleet in that moment.
But mostly, yes, we agree. Oh, show!
There was a lot of good world-building in this episode, actually. I found it gave me far more of a feel for the state of the Fleet than the last one which was all high drama and people punching each other in corridors. But...yeah. Kara and Gaeta in the mess hall was a macrocosm of all the hurt in the world and I really liked that moment.
Yes! They did so much with that scene. Lots of showing rather than telling.
I agree 100% about Tyrol and Cally and Hot Dog. Just...really, show???
BSG's continued destruction of the nuclear family as a healthy default for domestic stability and happiness continues to entertain me.
You know, I don't think I'd ever thought about this in quite these terms. I love it!
CAPRICA AND TIGH AND THE FLIPPERBABY ON THE SONOGRAM!!!!!!!! I am slightly ashamed to admit that when I realized what was happening in that scene I squealed out loud! WHY DO I LOVE THEM SO????? Oh, who cares. I DOOOOOO!!!!!
I kind of can sort of maybe see it if I squint, in that, while I think Saul thinks Ellen is forever dead, the fact that she was a cylon is probably, in some ways, a weight off his mind. Since in addition to killing her, he was also wrestling with his betrayal of her in terms of species. I think there's some peace to be found there in terms of his ability to begin to accept - at least a little - that he is a cylon. So I can kind of believe he's in a better place right now.
Yes, this! I was really surprised by Saul's lack of angst in that first scene as well as by the fact that apparently he's told at least Bill and Lee (and Zarek? and Laura? and the other Cylons?) that Ellen was the fifth. It's as though instead of causing him more distress, this knowledge has given him some peace, some ability to see what's true and what's not. Unlike Tyrol and his pronoun slippage (which was hilarious), Saul actually seems to have things straight here. He's XO of Galactica and he's a Cylon and he's freaking out a little bit while watching his fetus on a sonogram, but he's really holding everything together far better than I ever imagined he would be right now.
Which all makes me really worried for when Ellen shows up!!!! *smushes Caprica and Saul together*
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I'll be back with another comment on your other astute observations. I'm beginning to realize I need more distance to process last night's trauma.
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Part the First
In year four, I’m still working to get a handle on Zarek as well. I’m wondering if he ever was the idealist he claimed to be. Or was it a means to an end? Has it always been about Tom Zarek and the desire for power, damn the consequences and the people?
When the Tillium ship jumped away, my first thought is who the hell is going to protect them if they run into Cavil’s fleet? And if the Tillium ship was destroyed, they’re all dead in space. Does not Zarek realize that if he leads everyone to their deaths he’ll have no one to gloat to?
I mean, Adama handles things poorly. It's totally in character for him to make things worse by just refusing to even contemplate relieving Tigh of duty because now that he's sorted out his issues with his BFF everyone else should fall in line.
The smart thing to do would be to relieve Tigh of duty and, honestly, I don’t think Tigh would have a problem with that. But, it did occur to me that Lee, while still president, gave the four Cylons full pardons and allowed them to remain members of the fleet. So, Bill actually has the law on his side on this one.
Remember Dee? And how, once she knew she was going to die, she became superhappy and started having this perfect day and helping people and being flirty and delightful?
Laura just has longer before the inevitable death occurs.
I said last week - somewhere, to someone - that Laura was opting for a slow suicide. She believed she needed to suffer for what she had failed to accomplish and, to her mind, for leading them all to a slow death. I’d add now that the temporary euphoria she is experiencing, thanks to the drugs no longer wreaking havoc on her body, is giving her a false impression of happiness. When people start dying – and I think that’s bound to happen with a mutiny on the horizon – she’s going to have to look at herself and realize she could have prevented it and with that harsh reality she’ll resume her role as president.
I assume he was constantly brushing his teeth to get rid of the alcohol on his breath.
That’s the only serious reason I could come up with. At least Tigh never tried to hide the truth of what he was from people.
I'm not saying she doesn't want to sleep with Adama (although I really would rather not have seen it).
Heh. I didn’t comment on seeing them in bed together because I didn’t want to be accused of ageism. I didn’t have a problem with seeing her (though the bald cap, again, looked ridiculous) and I have no problem seeing older people, assuming they are in shape, without clothing. However, I could have lived without ever seeing EJO without a shirt on again.
She's doing it because she's so broken and so destructive she's actually trying to do the one thing that was antithetical to her before: put herself first. And not only that, because everyone must do that sometimes, but put herself first at the expense of her people.
That’s what felt off to me. Not that she wanted to grab some personal happiness before she died, but that she didn’t seem to care that the fleet was falling apart around her. And, worse yet, she was allowing Tom Zarek to wrestle control of the fleet away from her and Adama and obtain the power he always wanted.
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Part the Second
Yeah, given how hung up she was on Tyrol from day one and that he was finally staring to view her differently, why would she sleep with Hot Dog? Hell, why would anyone? ;p But, I guess neither of us should put too much thought into it since Ron admitted it was a retcon to make it clear that Hera is still special and one of a kind after deciding Tyrol would be one of the four. However, I do wish they had put more thought into the implications. Ron claims it was not his intent to make Cally look like a cheater, but how can she not look that way? And we could have had Cottle know the truth – they would type a baby’s blood at birth – but have him keep the information to himself. That way, it wouldn’t change the context of Cally’s previous actions if she was in the dark.
This just makes Cally a deceptive cheater in a series where there are already two other marriages with women who are, apparently, serial cheaters (Kara and Ellen, though I'm still not convinced Sam's comment at Lee wasn't some form of trash-talking/damage control).
I thought of that too. :/ Ron would probably argue that Lee was seeing Kara behind Dee’s back, but then they had Kara tell Dee that Lee won’t cheat. Sigh. I really don’t think Ron hates women, he seems to adore his wife, so I guess I have to chalk it up to obliviousness.
But srsly, Ishay. Join Gaeta's revolution if you must but I WAS NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE KNIFE, BITCH.
I want a flash forward ending in which we Lee is married to Ishay. Yes, I want the series to end on an in joke! Plus, her characters first name is Layne. We could call the ship LayLee! :D
I feel bad for having nothing to say about Lee but basically all he did this episode was wander around.
Hey! Laura wouldn’t take his calls! He was pacing the halls. ;p
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Oh no! Laura was making me really uncomfortable throughout this episode but I hadn't made that connection. I admit I was squeeful about the sex (I ship them because they only time I can stand Bill is when Laura is around to make him hot ;) But I hate her not caring. It's who she is. Your people!
I assume he was constantly brushing his teeth to get rid of the alcohol on his breath.
It wasn't till my second viewing that I got that. I was wondering WTF was up with the heroic musical score.
Kara's problem has always been that when someone baits her, and she knows it, she sees it as an excuse to let fly and not disappoint them because she was baited. It's still her problem, and it's still awesome to watch.
That was my favorite scene of the whole episode, even though they were both horrifying. It was so perfect for both characters, and I loved the Collaborators reversal.
Cally trying to deal with the fact her son was half what she hated, that she loved him so completely while hating half of what he was, that she could never actually get rid of that either because he's her son, just, all of it...
I hate that retcon for a FEW reasons, but oddly the implications for Cally's suicide are the part I'm most okay with. I love her and I loved that reading of her death - well, not loved YKWIM - but I wrote elsewhere that: some people really came down on Cally for almost killing her son out of "hate" - not me; it just made me want to hug her more. I have strange taste in fictional women. ;p But maybe I like that particular motive being off the table. Because I think it works anyway. She tried to kill herself, because in her mind, the terrifying world she already inhabited had just reached surrealist levels of horror - Tigh and her husband Cylons?? - and I think she just couldn't bear to live in that world anymore, where any smiling face could hide a monster. And I can understand that she just instinctively could not bear to leave her baby alone in that world with no one to protect him. Oh, Cally. :(
but I really don't understand why her instinct wasn't to tell someone.
Would anyone have really believed the crazy drugged woman who just had a public breakdown because she was convinced her husband was cheating when she said he and the XO were secret Cylons though? It obviously wasn't rational, but given how close to the edge she was even beforehand I can imagine she just snapped and thought that nowhere was safe. Or, you know, Cottle is totally lying to protect Nicky from his psychotic anti-Cylon medic. ;) Who had better keep her paws off Caprica, my god. That was terrifying.
And I start to wonder what RDM's obsession with romanticising relationships where the guy is mad faithful in love while the girl sleeps around is all about.
Carol-Anne was going to be a cheater too, per the podcast but they cut it. Even the main female character on Caprica is described as "a brilliant scientist and unfaithful wife." Grrr.
I really...I don't know what's gonna happen when the exact thing that happened with Baltar happens again but this time Gaeta can't console himself in the knowledge that he was secretly on the right side all along.
IKR! Feelix, do you never learn?!
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PLEASE DO. I don't think you adequately discussed how Bill's behavior was utterly reprehensible.
I'm also a fan of "hand-holdey and not-chokey" and "it's not AGEism, it's EJOism" (hell yes).
If they kill Flipper, I will hold you while you cry!
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