BSG: The Oath

[beccatoria]

OMG SRSLY PEOPLE WHY ARE YOU ALL STILL ASLEEP SO THERE IS NO ONE TO TALK TO ABOUT THIS EPISODE?

Basically, my entire reaction is that it made me ENORMOUSLY blood-thirsty. I now want like, everyone to die horribly. Next episode. Not because I dislike them or anything. Just because they need to die. But probably I have other thoughts too. I shall try to find them.

Laura is always a good place to start. The A/R was not so eye-gougingly horrifying as last time. I still dislike the little almost fanservicey moments like Tigh's reaction to Laura walking out in her bathrobe or "I'll have it ready," re: dinner. I really didn't like that. I know she was being sarcastic and teasing him, but just, blah. Hanging a lantern on the situation doesn't actually make the situation okay. Fortunately the rest of the episode helped change the situation.

I was also glad that everyone had the decency to look embarassed for Laura because she had to kiss that dumb old dude before getting on the raptor instead of Lee Tory Maya Baltar ANYONE ELSE. At least, that's my reading and I'm sticking to it. Although I have to admit, weirdly, the raptor-kissing scene bothered me a lot less than the dumb joke in his quarters. I guess like, the kissing seemed more along the lines of what I was mentally prepared to cope with?

Like for instance I actually liked the awesome way Laura called Adama out on his passive aggressive behaviour. Echoes of earlier in the season when she did something similar and he lashed out and left her crying and pulling out her own hair.

But anyway, moving on to the MORE AWESOME PARTS, Laura, you're back. Sort of. Mainly because that look when Lee and Kara come to get her and she just knows that this is her own damn fault. And, as she always does, she gets up, and tries to deal with it.

And now she's going to be on the Basestar. With CYLONS. FOMENTING CHAOS AND REVOLUTION AND POSSIBLY DECLARING WAR ON THE COMMANDEERED GALACTICA. For real, I did not know how awesome an idea that would be until it occured. I love it. I only wish that Kara and Lee and all my favourite brigged-up cylon had gone with her.

I also enjoyed her scenes with Baltar. And Baltar's scenes with his cult. Mainly because he seems to be back in that mode of playing the role for his own benefit and you guys, you have no idea how much of a relief it is to see Baltar going back to being All About Baltar instead of being All About Being Your Saviour. *shudders*

THE CYLON IN THE BRIG! DON'T HURT THEM! Yes, I know this is at odds with my bloodthirsty desire to see everyone dead, but I'll get to that later. Suffice to say I don't want these guys dead yet.

I'm really not sure why Helo and Sharon didn't lock the door when they heard shooting but whatever, Helo is still a freight-train of stand-up morality, Hera is still adorable, and Athena is still entertaining me with her advice to Sam and eye-rolly response to Caprica.

One of my fondest hopes for next episode (although I'm sure it will be dashed) is that Caprica will break out of the brig using only her DEADLY STILETTO HEELS but until then, I will be satisfied by her making hilariously inappropriate and proselytizing speeches about procreation and freaking out the robotic children.

Also, Hera finally got a hug from a Six that didn't end in DEATH.

It looks like they cut the footage of Caprica getting captured which I'm quasi-grateful for becuase I really can do without the stress of seeing Pegasus rapists beat on her, but at the same time, her capture might have shed light on where she was living. I mean, I assume with Tigh, but who knows.

(I sekritly hope that her new shawly thing is actually Ellen's and that later we'll see her in ridonkulus PINK clothing, but again, I expect my hopes to be dashed.)

KARA AND LEE! I will confess, I didn't know how much I missed those two as the Twins until I saw them again. I didn't even mind the kiss. Kind of like their previous S4 kiss I felt it was completely appropriate and intepretable in numerous ways. For those of you who think it was romantic, well, I agree that was the authorial intention, and don't even have a problem with that, really. I just think that the way in which it was loving also plays into the whole best-friends-grew-up-together-adrenaline-rush-cus-we're-alive dynamic they have that I also love.

How else did I love them? I loved Lee refusing to give up on democracy, and while, yes, Zarek played him, he didn't totally play him. Lee went to get his own information - to find out the facts on the ground. I loved Lee the pragmatist. Lee who is still so furious with the Cylon but also knows that this is the only option left.

No, sorry, as he pointed out in one of the most heartbreaking exchanges of the episode, the only option the Cylon left them with.

I say, as someone who is completely on Team Cylon, who loves and adores this show largely because of the wonderful, complicated Cylon, Lee is absolutely right here.

Lee is actually an interesting counterpoint to Racetrack. Because at first I wasn't on board with her being on board with the mutiny. But actually Racetrack got smacked down by Kara for bitching about Helo. Racetrack got betrayed by Boomer. Racetrack helped save Roslin because she believed in the civilian government or in Laura's visions, not because she was in any way Cylon-friendly. Racetrack was actually - once I thought about it - a good reminder that, like Lee, you can be very, very anti-Cylon without being Connor. Without being one of the Circle. Without also thinking every human collaborator is just as bad as a Cylon. You can have high ideals about democracy and the rights of the people and choose to take arms against your superiors to defend those when it becomes a moral issue and still come down on one side during the start of season two and the other during the end of season four and your morals don't need to have changed in the middle.

Racetrack, again, is committing mutiny because she wants to restore the person she sees as the rightful leader of the people to a position of power.

It's fascinating that she is, in many ways, doing the exact same thing as Lee and has all the same ideals (at least she could, I guess we don't really know), but lacks his cold pragmatism and his understanding that the mutineers will commit worse atrocities here and so...is on the other side.

But to get away from my Racetrack tangent, KARA! OH HONEY. YOU'RE BACK AND IT INVOLVES KILLING PEOPLE AND BEING VERY SCARY AND AWESOME.

I don't have a lot to say except she was perfect. The way she took charge and just decided to singlehandedly put down a shipwide mutiny. The way she just decided, almost Cain-style that she was taking not shit from anyone and started shooting, and yeah. She would have killed Racetrack. Racetrack who she's flown with for three years. Racetrack who she trusts. Racetrack. She'd've shot her. Without a second thought. And as awesome and Kara-Thracey as that is, my friends, that is also terrifying.

It's also a rational response to the situation because Zarek and Gaeta made it this scary.

This mutiny is the Galactica's Pegasus moment. Made easier to swallow by the reintroduction of all the Pegasus crazies, but it's not them leading the charge. It's not even really Zarek.

Because guess what? Zarek and Gaeta don't have good points. Not a single frakking one. No better than Cain's "good point" about how Gina was a machine so it was cool to rape her. All of Zarek's points are about manipulating people for a power grab. All of Gaeta's are about rage.

Lee is the one with the good points here. That it's not fair, that it's not just all they have left but all they've been left with. That it sucks this is their only option. That it doesn't earn an iota of forgiveness, or quench an ounce of anger.

The only true point Gaeta and Zarek have is that people are angry and aren't going to stop being angry just because they also want to live. But their response and their justifications are as useless as Cain's justifications for shooting the civilians on the Scylla. For what happened to Gina. For ordering Adama's assassination.

When they're more insane than the situation that precipitates them, they stop being good points and start being one more symptom of the nihilistic, broken world you've chosen to make.

Galactica is turning into Pegasus as we watch.

Here is the point where they just quietly go mad and decide the body count is immaterial, what matters is somehow exerting control.

What matters is Seelix leading two marines up to Sam, watching them beat the shit out of him, and deciding that the pain of watching them do it is less then the pain of watching them stop. What matters is Skulls deciding it's better to make a cruel joke about Laird's death than consider what it means. What matters is Gaeta turning into Cain and salving his conscience by ordering up the same kind of kangaroo court trial for the Admiral that Cain had for Helo and Tyrol.

It's kind of amazing that I understand it, and that I don't really feel it comes out of nowhere. It comes out of the same loss that precipitated Pegasus' breakdown. With the loss of Earth, they lost their worlds again.

But it also makes me bloodthirsty in a way I can't justify.

It's not that I hate any of the characters, but I just want everyone to die. Like I want the ship to be retaken by the "good" guys, and for Gaeta and Seelix and Zarek and Connor and Narcho and Skulls and maybe even Racetrack (though that might actually upset me) to stand trial for treason and mutiny and get executed. Or gunned down horribly.

I want a body count, because dammit, they went brutal on us here. The show started it, so it damn well better finish it. We're in the final season. There's no more room for escalation.

And I know, if they execute every damn one of the people involved in this mutiny, they won't have enough people to run the ship. I don't care. I want to see it happen.

Not because I think that this particular crime is deserving of such punishment. Not because I think they deserve less leniency than the people who got a blanket pardon after New Caprica, or the people who helped Roslin with her insurrection in season two, or any of the other billion and three mutinies or acts of treason we've seen over the course of the series. Of course they're just as deserving of forgiveness.

Maybe in some ways that's the point. I just...I can't see it working. Gaeta cannot ever, ever go back to being an officer in CIC. Narcho can never be just another pilot. Even on New Caprica, it somehow stopped short of actual murder (although only through sheer luck) and even if that execution had happened, somehow it was off the sacred ground of the Galactica herself. It was under duress of the enemy, in a snake pit, and the culprits were at least ashamed enough to stay masked.

The power of this story is its nihilism. It needs a pointless, horrific, nihilistic end. Obviously, I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I don't think that a grand speech from an Adama or the President about healing wounds and how few they have left will cut it this time.

I want a bodycount. I want Gaeta, Zarek and at least the other major ringleaders like Connor to stand trial and die. And for it to be an empty, hollow experience for everyone involved.

And dammit, really, I don't know what's gotten into me to make me this bloodthirsty.