beccatoria | BSG: Daybreak I

To be perfectly honest, guys, I was kinda bored. Well, that's harsh. I mean, at any other point in the series, I'd've been cool with it. But like, I'm too stressed by what will happen next week and whether I'll get answers to stuff to really enjoy this slow ride. If the finale delivers I'll probably enjoy it more in retrospect.

Although I really hope that the flashbacks end up with a, well, point to them next episode. Either a plot-related reason we're seeing this, or a stronger thematic reason then "we thought it'd be nice to look back at the beginning since we're at the end." Cus, I mean, that's a good enough reason to want to write it, but within the context of the whole package, I will want to feel there was a good reason to see these flashbacks instead of more of what was going on now. So like, cycle of time plottiness please, or at least something that feels cyclical enough to justify its own existence.

Which currently, this doesn't. And also the opening was trying very hard to be all like Kobol's Last Gleaming I or Occupation or Someone to Watch Over Me but really it just felt like random "pretty" shots from later in the episode for no real reason.

I actually mostly enjoyed the flashbacks. I mean, I have NO IDEA what the fuck was going on with that pigeon or what the significance was supposed to be (I AM BECOME LEEMO, DESTROYER OF PIGEONS!) nor was it intriguing enough for me to want to try and work it out, so I'm just going to laugh at the fact Lee got drunk and attacked a pigeon with a broom.

Also I assume that the very brief flashback to Adama (and thankfully it at least wasn't a stacheback!) was in reference to his mission in Hero. Dear god I was hoping we'd never have to revisit that episode again.

But I did like the Baltar and Laura stuff a lot. I mean, there's something melodramatic about, in the penultimate episode, suddenly giving Laura a tragic family backstory, but ZOMG it was SO MUCH BETTER HANDLED than suddenly giving Lee an abusive childhood or making Adama quasi-responsible for the start of the Cylon war. Possibly down to the fact that a) it was Mary McDonnell acting in it and b) I was so damn relieved to have Laura back. With hair. And no Adama. Giggling.

I'm inclined to say that the pregnant sister was kind of overkill. I get it; the continuation of Laura's family - everyone wiped out in a second (assuming her mother was already dead?). She already lost everything before the attacks ever happened. I'm not...I'm neither for nor against this story for her. I don't feel that undermines her emotional response to the apocalypse or heightens it. It's just...more information. And confirmation that this show really hates babies!

Unless...unless I suppose the flashbacks are all about the people we lost aren't they? Laura and her family. Lee and Zak. Kara and Zak. Adama being sent out on the mission he at least feels lost everyone everything. Even Baltar and Caprica sort of. Even if she's still alive. Even Sam and his perfect moments: he has them now, possibly, maybe, but is he alive enough to understand them? Does he miss that life? Is his existence one perfect shot? (WAKE UP, SAMMY! *cries*)

And again, maybe that's my failing for not seeing it until now, but that's what you get when you make someone as wound up about the finale as I am watch an episode as slow as this.

There are such lovely moments here, but I'm too tense to appreciate them.

I pretty much loved everything about Caprica owning the universe while drinking in every scene. I loved the "You know I've forgotten your name..." thing. And how his not knowing it ends up equally her choice. I imagine her liking that. Having it make her feel powerful, and in a way, like she's being more honest with him, becuase she doesn't actually have one. It's like a negative commentary on the name everyone else gave her and all that name means. The Sixes are the most individual of all the models; always fracturing off and naming themselves. The most unique of all of them, always tried to slide quietly into the background. But never could. Because Sixes are always fracturing off and getting named.

Also this episode proved that they CAN still do a not-awful job on her wig so like, WTF is going on with the terrible "present day" monstrosity? Also I really hope that her desire to fix this broken, complicated old man was NOTHING AT ALL LIKE her desire to fix broken, complicated old Saul Tigh because, for serious. EWW.

I have no idea what they're trying to do with Gaius. First, to deal with the political issues he (Paulla) raised - I don't get them. I don't understand why Lee didn't blow the premise out of the water.

If I understood Paulla correctly, she was claiming that followers of Baltarism now made up a majority on over half the ships in the Fleet (which first, eew. Polytheism > Monotheism). But...why the hell should that mean they should get their own representative in the government? Aren't they represented by the Captains of the Ships they're on like every other frakking person left alive?

I mean, I also have some issues about the fact the new Quorum is made up of presumably unelected Captains. I think breaking it down by ship is a good idea but I think the representatives from each ship should be elected. Even so, presumably the job of the ship's captain is to represent everyone on board that ship. This means that the Baltarians ALREADY have a lot of political power and representation. If they're being ignored and slighted by their legal representatives, then that's something they should redress via, like, voting and shit and lobbying the government to protect their interests/assign them a representative who better represents the interests of the people on the ship. Not by just deciding that they should get extra special representation.

Cus then, where does it stop? Do the Sons of Aries get a seat? How about the Mithraists? The traditional Polytheists? The Saggitaron religion? Does it stop with religion? How about unions? Or fucking fan clubs? Or the Twos, Sixes and Eights, should they each get their own representative? What about the deck gang, or the pilots? What about the remains of the Colonial Bar Association?

ALL of these groups deserve political representation and...none of them do. They're made up of individuals. Individuals get votes. A self-identified group of individuals can use that power to great effect as the Evangelical Religious Right have shown in the United States. As the Trade Unions showed in pre-Thatcher Britain (eta: as

heyiya rightly snagged me about, this isn't strictly a good definition of the role of Trade Unions, but...I hope you get what I'm getting at - politically interested groups that excercise power via the individual votes of its membership and such)/eta. But you don't just say, "Oh, hi, you have more than X people who identify as part of your club: HAVE A SEAT IN THE GOVERNMENT!"

So like, bluntly, Gaius, your whole point is bullshit. And I don't know why Lee didn't call him on it.

But I did very much like Lee calling him on the fact that Gaius Baltar doesn't even pass Gaius Baltar's test of moral turpitude. And I agree with him.

And...weirdly the writers seem to too. Because I STILL think that even though Baltar doesn't think he's doing this for selfish reasons, he kind of is. "I'm not even saying it'll be me," isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for it to be someone else, especially when he then goes on to talk as if obviously it'll be him forever more.

Though I also think the writers might be trying to reform him.

I have complicated feelings about that.

I'm willing to accept some level of "redemption" for Baltar as long as it doesn't try to whitewash his previous actions or imply that he's suddenly some saint. Just that he's not quite the frakker he used to be and he's trying to make up for it instead of trying to do everything, including making up an entirely new religion, so he doesn't haveto make up for it.

I think this episode managed to tow that line reasonably well. If we end with him trying to do the right thing and everyone being hilariously suspicious of him, I'm mostly okay with that.

I totally thought he was gonna volunteer for the mission. He kept glancing over at Caprica. But at the end he's still standing on the other side.

My hypothesis, since I can't believe they'll leave a major cast member out of this mission, is that he'll show up or volunteer late on his own or something, trying to impress everyone with his selflessness because he didn't want his harem to follow his example/Lee to think he was being "selfless" instead of selfless again.

And then Caprica can be all, "That's wonderful Gaius, but your harem had all the GUNS. We could have really done with those." And then Gaius can accidentally shoot himself in the leg.

And that's mostly it. A few other random points:

- I'd make snarky comments about Adama's "YOU'RE MY DAUGHTER!" stuff and how it really loses some weight when he's already thrown that term around and revoked it like five times, and how he doesn't treat her like a daughter, but then I remember Lee, and figure, no, he's pretty much treating the twins equally. Plus I'm tired, and couldn't even mutter the energy to laugh at his pompous speech, so you can all just pretend I blew my top about him again, okay? ;)

- I really did love Laura volunteering for the mission. I mean, okay, practically, what exactly is a terminally ill cancer patient gonna do for the mission, but dude, she almost felt like my Laura again. And I just love, love, loved the way Starbuck put her arm around her and held her up.

- Ellen and Tory! OMG that was adorkable. Ellen just cut through all of Tory's shit in the most endearing and loving way ever of saying, "Sweetheart, you're TOTALLY coming on this suicide mission with me." It was...all of ten seconds, but perhaps the ten seconds that have so far best combined Original!Ellen and Cylon!Ellen.

- I really want to hug Helo. I mean, I get why Athena's the way she is, I really do. This isn't about taking sides in an frakked up situation where taking sides should be the last thing anyone has to do. But it's Helo, still with that broken hope that he's gonna get Hera back and everything will be all right again that breaks me.

- Helo would never have put Hera's picture on the wall. It must have been Athena, which again is heartbreaking. Especially since she put her own photo up there with her. Athena wasn't there for the volunteering but I can't imagine she won't be going.

- I really hope Adama told someone to pick up all the pictures from the wall even if there was no one there to claim them. They ought to be kept.

- I find it highly distressing that season 4.5 has now given me Laura Roslin raining down destruction on her own people from the helm of a Cylon Basestar, and drenched under a fountain with her own hair and that NEITHER INSTANCE was anywhere near as hot as it should have been. I hope Ron Moore feels appropriately guilty about that.

And, that's it. There was good stuff in there, but I can't lie and say I wasn't disappointed that basically NOTHING HAPPENED that we didn't know from the promo.