BSG: The Woman, King
Okay, first, the title. Why? Just…why? What is it supposed to mean? Apparently there’s supposed to be a comma in it (see above) but it still doesn’t make any sense.
I’m convinced there’s a fantastic episode hiding in here somewhere. They had a brilliant set-up. Great to see the return of civilians on Galactica and to see Helo’s new job. The set-up allowed for some very subtle commentary on minority beliefs, on the ethics of dealing with a group who refuses medical treatment, on the ethics of treating people against their request, on the fire-cracker situation where failure of medication to save someone can be misconstrued as medication causing death. About the ethics of selectively offering life-saving treatment to those more likely to continue to comply with it and therefore recover. Saggitarion racism struck me immediately as a chance to explore not only racism, but a chance to explore "invisible" isms - discrimination against gay people or a religious minority - where a person’s affiliation is not necessarily readily apparent (there does not appear to be a clear visible difference of skin colour or even clothing style). The parallels between this and the fear that anyone could be a cylon is obvious. This is a chance to explore the way no one wants to acknowledge that racism exists in "modern, western" society because it’s too ugly. It’s easier to not mention it until the object of your discrimination is on your doorstep, threatening to infect you with the plague. It’s easy for Adama to look the other way in the middle of a crisis because "that kind of thing doesn’t happen". People want to make excuses. A way to approach racism the way we end up dealing with it now - not like the past where is was just “normal” to be blatant about how X race were lazy and ugly, no, now it gets couched and covered by excuses. "I’m not being racist, but..." is a completely redundant and hypocritical way to start a sentence.
This was a great show to tackle these issues. Because the Saggitarions were clearly the victims of racism, with the establishment turning a blind eye to their needs, but also genuinely putting others in danger due to their cultural issues. Now that’s a level of discussion worthy of this show - that’s Flesh & Bone level reversal.
Unfortunately, a lot of that gets undercut by the simplistic hate-motivated killings perpetrated by Dr Robert. The parallels with Black Market are not unfounded - both tackle worthy issues, but ultimately undercut any deeper meaning by delivering a pat, “deep” ending. Phelan is made to be a child molester (or to facilitate child molesters) so that he’s “bad” enough to get shot, thereby invalidating any weight or interest his arguments may otherwise have had. Similarly, Robert is made to be an angry hate-filled racist. He’s not simply withholding meds from Saggitarions or providing them with substandard care, or even euthanizing them on the sly (all horrific, race-based things, which would still, I feel, have been easier to incorporate into a story of a Doctor forced to make desperate decisions in the face of overwhelming medical shortages), no, he’s actively killing them because he hates them and thinks they’re worthless scumbags. Which, again, puts things much more squarely into right/wrong categories than I’m traditionally happy with in this show.
Actually, I’d argue that this episode does a better job than Black Market because they manage a fairly subtle discussion on the topic until the apprehension of Robert. Though the resolution really does wreck it.
It would have been interesting to see the internal racial conflicts and underlying racism in our main characters if it didn’t feel so ‘out of nowhere’. I mean, they’ve established that Saggitarion is looked down on, but not to this extent. I know that perhaps it’s just because suddenly it’s an issue. Case in point: I’d heard that people were racist against Polish people, but never really saw any of it until I moved to the city I’m in now. There are loads of Polish people (to the point that there’s a Polish supermarket across the road from my house and adverts in the job paper in Polish) and…yeah, it’s really surprising how much crap I hear people talking about them. And I’m fairly certain that it wasn’t like this before the recent changes in European law made it easier for people from Poland (and other countries) to move to the UK. Basically, until now, I was never in a situation to see anti-Polish racism. So perhaps we never really saw Saggitarion racism among the Galactica crew because they weren’t confronted by the "unwashed masses" before. They just had to deal with “good” Saggitarions like Dee who’d seen the light…
Still, it felt a little jarring - not in a "I’m shocked these people could be racist!" way, but in a "where did THIS come from," way. Like in the never-before-seen-previouslies, I just can’t buy Gaeta being anything less than totally politically correct.
I’m wondering about the Chief. This is the second time we’ve seen him getting more than slightly drunk at a bar without his wife. Also, I was confused by his disdain for the Saggitarions as religious freaks because…isn’t he Geminese? Aren’t they like the fundamentalists of the fleet? I’ve concluded that if the Geminese are the Born-Again Fundamentalists, then the Saggitarions are the Gnostic Pagans, which I actually think is a cool comparison. I quite liked the throwaway line that they don’t believe in medicine because both the body and the mind are illusions. Very questioning of reality, very reminiscent of reality-as-prison. Very Gnostic, from my limited understanding of that term.
One good upshot of the sudden attack of racism was seeing Dee’s reaction. Oh, boy that was painful. Put up a front, bitch about them so they don’t bitch about you, and it’s probably not all even faked. I’m not a member of any minority that’s as marginalized and attacked as the Saggitarions, and I’m so grateful for that. Though I do sympathise with Dee’s attitude in a small way, being an American, with no accent, raised in the UK. I hear a lot of shit spoken about the US, and most of it is hypocritical BS, to be honest. But the choice I get is, a) shut up and listen to it and don’t make a fuss, b) point out the hypocrisy and look like I’m defending something I’m probably madder about than they are, c) join in so they think I’m one of the “good ones” or d) try to mollify them and apologise (when it’s not my fault).
So yeah, I get where Dee is coming from a little. I even get the anger. Why should everyone else get to be madder than you when it’s your people who are behaving in a way you believe to be self-destructive, or who are being manipulated and lied to, abandoning principles you believe in.
What I’m not sure about is why Dee suddenly has this hate-on for Cottle. I mean, choosing to visit a different Doctor (who is also in charge of the meds for the disease you have - though…how did she catch it?), that I can understand. But protesting that she doesn’t want to see Cottle when she’s so sick she can barely stand, um, why?
Another thing this episode had the potential to do marvelously was the politics of the racist. Why these people believe the things they do. Not just in terms of medical professionals like Cottle nursing anger because these traditions mean they have to watch patients die, but people like Athena, desperate to find someone other than them to be a target. People like Adama who just don’t have the time because they have an overcrowded, overworked Battlestar to deal with, and who end up racist by omission.
My Crazy Love For Tigh has been somewhat restored by this episode. I still don’t believe he’s fit for duty, and it was nice to see his unprofessional, dangerous, loyal-only-to-his-own streak rear its beautiful head. Plus Helo decked him, which was not as awesome as when Roslin slapped him, but I’ll take what I can get.
I actually thought that Helo did a decent job of carrying the episode. I was not as put-off by his way of acting “anger/distress” which usually involves making a face like something smells really bad, as I usually am. (And I’m being unkind. I’ve always enjoyed watching Helo and think that Tahmoh Pennikett is a decent actor.)
It was nice, yet surreal, to see Hera with her actual parents. I wonder if being passed between three different families before the age of two will affect her. I honestly wouldn’t have minded seeing more of their interactions as a family simply because they only JUST got her back (what WAS wrong with her on the Basestar?) Who do they leave her with when they’re both at work? Is there a crèche? Would they honestly feel comfortable leaving their half-cylon kid with strangers?
It was nice to see Helo asserting his identity separate to Athena. Though I’m glad that they didn’t include the cut scene at the end (was there a longer version of that online?). There could be no good outcome to that conversation, so while I respect Helo’s desire to confess, I’m not sure how they could have resolved it without the cop out of fading to black or without making me relive my confusion all over again. You know, respecting Helo wanting to be a stand-up guy, but thinking, really dude, do you have any idea of the consequences of your actions? Actually that’s one of the reasons I’m glad Helo WAS such a stand up freight-train of moral authority in this episode. After the stunt he pulled killing those Cylons, he sort of has to be to maintain any kind of integrity.
IMAGINARY GAIUS IS BACK! I was so glad to see him! And how intriguing his words to Caprica (oh Tricia Helfer, I love your acting). She wants to be a human while Baltar wants to be a cylon. Oh, irony! Also, Roslin, watching her make out with her imaginary boyfriend through tinted glass…totally voyeuristic and slightly creepy! The most intriguing revelation of the scene though - they’re capturing her imaginary conversations. Now that has some connotations.
I agree with Roslin about Zarek. If he really is scared and about what he’s advocating. I can’t understand how this fits into his character. He’s always been about the revolution. He’s always been about destroying the status quo and starting again. I find the idea that he’s suddenly changed his mind, become less naïve, and more willing to control the people “for their own good” to be…disappointing. I liked him as extremely principled. I can’t work out how this idea fits into any of his principles. Even the Circle fit into his idea of a new order rising from the ashes. That was the point - he was acting violently behind the scenes to make it possible (which I suppose does betray some controlling mass-decision making tendencies). If anything, Zarek is Fight Club. Which is a great and often misunderstood book. It’s not about asserting your identity with violence - it’s about destroying yourself - and everything else, because you’re trapped by history, boxed into this nonsensical society we’ve created which puts all the wrong things first (or perhaps I misunderstand it because I’m not an angry young man…) The point is, Zarek wants to destroy the past and start fresh. I’ve said before (I think) that Zarek has all these ideas about social reform and completely, and TOTALLY, ignores the existence of the Cylon. It really is as if he wants to constantly abandon anything that happened in the past and continue on from this instant forwards. So I suppose, perhaps, he’s worried that dragging up the treason during New Caprica and the attacks (what he was trying to avoid by getting rid of the worst offenders via the Circle) will only further trap the fleet in their patterns of fear and spite and anger and prevent any kind of forward movement as they fixate on the past?
I’m still not sure I’m not fanwanking this, though.
In summary, this really could have been a phenomenal episode if it had had slightly more build-up regarding the racial tensions re: the Saggitarions earlier in the season, and if it had had an ending that lived up to the intriguing and subtle racial commentary that existed in the first thirty-five minutes of the show. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It had a two-dimensional, easy-out ending, and nothing Dr Robert shouted would have come off as anything other than the ravings of a mad-man. If it had been a story of an insane, murderous Doctor, the ending would have been fine. But it wasn’t. It was a story about racism, and slapping on the insane, murderous Doctor ending undercut a lot of the power that might otherwise have existed in the intelligent and layered setup.
I’m convinced there’s a fantastic episode hiding in here somewhere. They had a brilliant set-up. Great to see the return of civilians on Galactica and to see Helo’s new job. The set-up allowed for some very subtle commentary on minority beliefs, on the ethics of dealing with a group who refuses medical treatment, on the ethics of treating people against their request, on the fire-cracker situation where failure of medication to save someone can be misconstrued as medication causing death. About the ethics of selectively offering life-saving treatment to those more likely to continue to comply with it and therefore recover. Saggitarion racism struck me immediately as a chance to explore not only racism, but a chance to explore "invisible" isms - discrimination against gay people or a religious minority - where a person’s affiliation is not necessarily readily apparent (there does not appear to be a clear visible difference of skin colour or even clothing style). The parallels between this and the fear that anyone could be a cylon is obvious. This is a chance to explore the way no one wants to acknowledge that racism exists in "modern, western" society because it’s too ugly. It’s easier to not mention it until the object of your discrimination is on your doorstep, threatening to infect you with the plague. It’s easy for Adama to look the other way in the middle of a crisis because "that kind of thing doesn’t happen". People want to make excuses. A way to approach racism the way we end up dealing with it now - not like the past where is was just “normal” to be blatant about how X race were lazy and ugly, no, now it gets couched and covered by excuses. "I’m not being racist, but..." is a completely redundant and hypocritical way to start a sentence.
This was a great show to tackle these issues. Because the Saggitarions were clearly the victims of racism, with the establishment turning a blind eye to their needs, but also genuinely putting others in danger due to their cultural issues. Now that’s a level of discussion worthy of this show - that’s Flesh & Bone level reversal.
Unfortunately, a lot of that gets undercut by the simplistic hate-motivated killings perpetrated by Dr Robert. The parallels with Black Market are not unfounded - both tackle worthy issues, but ultimately undercut any deeper meaning by delivering a pat, “deep” ending. Phelan is made to be a child molester (or to facilitate child molesters) so that he’s “bad” enough to get shot, thereby invalidating any weight or interest his arguments may otherwise have had. Similarly, Robert is made to be an angry hate-filled racist. He’s not simply withholding meds from Saggitarions or providing them with substandard care, or even euthanizing them on the sly (all horrific, race-based things, which would still, I feel, have been easier to incorporate into a story of a Doctor forced to make desperate decisions in the face of overwhelming medical shortages), no, he’s actively killing them because he hates them and thinks they’re worthless scumbags. Which, again, puts things much more squarely into right/wrong categories than I’m traditionally happy with in this show.
Actually, I’d argue that this episode does a better job than Black Market because they manage a fairly subtle discussion on the topic until the apprehension of Robert. Though the resolution really does wreck it.
It would have been interesting to see the internal racial conflicts and underlying racism in our main characters if it didn’t feel so ‘out of nowhere’. I mean, they’ve established that Saggitarion is looked down on, but not to this extent. I know that perhaps it’s just because suddenly it’s an issue. Case in point: I’d heard that people were racist against Polish people, but never really saw any of it until I moved to the city I’m in now. There are loads of Polish people (to the point that there’s a Polish supermarket across the road from my house and adverts in the job paper in Polish) and…yeah, it’s really surprising how much crap I hear people talking about them. And I’m fairly certain that it wasn’t like this before the recent changes in European law made it easier for people from Poland (and other countries) to move to the UK. Basically, until now, I was never in a situation to see anti-Polish racism. So perhaps we never really saw Saggitarion racism among the Galactica crew because they weren’t confronted by the "unwashed masses" before. They just had to deal with “good” Saggitarions like Dee who’d seen the light…
Still, it felt a little jarring - not in a "I’m shocked these people could be racist!" way, but in a "where did THIS come from," way. Like in the never-before-seen-previouslies, I just can’t buy Gaeta being anything less than totally politically correct.
I’m wondering about the Chief. This is the second time we’ve seen him getting more than slightly drunk at a bar without his wife. Also, I was confused by his disdain for the Saggitarions as religious freaks because…isn’t he Geminese? Aren’t they like the fundamentalists of the fleet? I’ve concluded that if the Geminese are the Born-Again Fundamentalists, then the Saggitarions are the Gnostic Pagans, which I actually think is a cool comparison. I quite liked the throwaway line that they don’t believe in medicine because both the body and the mind are illusions. Very questioning of reality, very reminiscent of reality-as-prison. Very Gnostic, from my limited understanding of that term.
One good upshot of the sudden attack of racism was seeing Dee’s reaction. Oh, boy that was painful. Put up a front, bitch about them so they don’t bitch about you, and it’s probably not all even faked. I’m not a member of any minority that’s as marginalized and attacked as the Saggitarions, and I’m so grateful for that. Though I do sympathise with Dee’s attitude in a small way, being an American, with no accent, raised in the UK. I hear a lot of shit spoken about the US, and most of it is hypocritical BS, to be honest. But the choice I get is, a) shut up and listen to it and don’t make a fuss, b) point out the hypocrisy and look like I’m defending something I’m probably madder about than they are, c) join in so they think I’m one of the “good ones” or d) try to mollify them and apologise (when it’s not my fault).
So yeah, I get where Dee is coming from a little. I even get the anger. Why should everyone else get to be madder than you when it’s your people who are behaving in a way you believe to be self-destructive, or who are being manipulated and lied to, abandoning principles you believe in.
What I’m not sure about is why Dee suddenly has this hate-on for Cottle. I mean, choosing to visit a different Doctor (who is also in charge of the meds for the disease you have - though…how did she catch it?), that I can understand. But protesting that she doesn’t want to see Cottle when she’s so sick she can barely stand, um, why?
Another thing this episode had the potential to do marvelously was the politics of the racist. Why these people believe the things they do. Not just in terms of medical professionals like Cottle nursing anger because these traditions mean they have to watch patients die, but people like Athena, desperate to find someone other than them to be a target. People like Adama who just don’t have the time because they have an overcrowded, overworked Battlestar to deal with, and who end up racist by omission.
My Crazy Love For Tigh has been somewhat restored by this episode. I still don’t believe he’s fit for duty, and it was nice to see his unprofessional, dangerous, loyal-only-to-his-own streak rear its beautiful head. Plus Helo decked him, which was not as awesome as when Roslin slapped him, but I’ll take what I can get.
I actually thought that Helo did a decent job of carrying the episode. I was not as put-off by his way of acting “anger/distress” which usually involves making a face like something smells really bad, as I usually am. (And I’m being unkind. I’ve always enjoyed watching Helo and think that Tahmoh Pennikett is a decent actor.)
It was nice, yet surreal, to see Hera with her actual parents. I wonder if being passed between three different families before the age of two will affect her. I honestly wouldn’t have minded seeing more of their interactions as a family simply because they only JUST got her back (what WAS wrong with her on the Basestar?) Who do they leave her with when they’re both at work? Is there a crèche? Would they honestly feel comfortable leaving their half-cylon kid with strangers?
It was nice to see Helo asserting his identity separate to Athena. Though I’m glad that they didn’t include the cut scene at the end (was there a longer version of that online?). There could be no good outcome to that conversation, so while I respect Helo’s desire to confess, I’m not sure how they could have resolved it without the cop out of fading to black or without making me relive my confusion all over again. You know, respecting Helo wanting to be a stand-up guy, but thinking, really dude, do you have any idea of the consequences of your actions? Actually that’s one of the reasons I’m glad Helo WAS such a stand up freight-train of moral authority in this episode. After the stunt he pulled killing those Cylons, he sort of has to be to maintain any kind of integrity.
IMAGINARY GAIUS IS BACK! I was so glad to see him! And how intriguing his words to Caprica (oh Tricia Helfer, I love your acting). She wants to be a human while Baltar wants to be a cylon. Oh, irony! Also, Roslin, watching her make out with her imaginary boyfriend through tinted glass…totally voyeuristic and slightly creepy! The most intriguing revelation of the scene though - they’re capturing her imaginary conversations. Now that has some connotations.
I agree with Roslin about Zarek. If he really is scared and about what he’s advocating. I can’t understand how this fits into his character. He’s always been about the revolution. He’s always been about destroying the status quo and starting again. I find the idea that he’s suddenly changed his mind, become less naïve, and more willing to control the people “for their own good” to be…disappointing. I liked him as extremely principled. I can’t work out how this idea fits into any of his principles. Even the Circle fit into his idea of a new order rising from the ashes. That was the point - he was acting violently behind the scenes to make it possible (which I suppose does betray some controlling mass-decision making tendencies). If anything, Zarek is Fight Club. Which is a great and often misunderstood book. It’s not about asserting your identity with violence - it’s about destroying yourself - and everything else, because you’re trapped by history, boxed into this nonsensical society we’ve created which puts all the wrong things first (or perhaps I misunderstand it because I’m not an angry young man…) The point is, Zarek wants to destroy the past and start fresh. I’ve said before (I think) that Zarek has all these ideas about social reform and completely, and TOTALLY, ignores the existence of the Cylon. It really is as if he wants to constantly abandon anything that happened in the past and continue on from this instant forwards. So I suppose, perhaps, he’s worried that dragging up the treason during New Caprica and the attacks (what he was trying to avoid by getting rid of the worst offenders via the Circle) will only further trap the fleet in their patterns of fear and spite and anger and prevent any kind of forward movement as they fixate on the past?
I’m still not sure I’m not fanwanking this, though.
In summary, this really could have been a phenomenal episode if it had had slightly more build-up regarding the racial tensions re: the Saggitarions earlier in the season, and if it had had an ending that lived up to the intriguing and subtle racial commentary that existed in the first thirty-five minutes of the show. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It had a two-dimensional, easy-out ending, and nothing Dr Robert shouted would have come off as anything other than the ravings of a mad-man. If it had been a story of an insane, murderous Doctor, the ending would have been fine. But it wasn’t. It was a story about racism, and slapping on the insane, murderous Doctor ending undercut a lot of the power that might otherwise have existed in the intelligent and layered setup.