Battlestar Galactica 4x11 "Sometimes a Great Notion"
Battlestar premiered tonight with the episode "Sometimes a Great Notion", starting off right where it ended so many months ago with the crew of the Galactica standing on a nuclear ravaged Earth.
Let me start off by saying, "Wow, what the FRAK?"
That entire episode felt like a colossal, depressing mindfrak from start to finish. It is, essentially all about the loss of hope, which is what a destroyed Earth would represent to the Fleet. All their dreams, hopes, and desires come crashing down around them and everyone suffers for it. Every character seems sapped and drained throughout. As the episode progresses, you can watch the hallways of the Galactica degenerate from their normal, organic business to dingy and dull and full of despair. Grafitti eventually covers the walls and trash lines the floor as people huddle in corners or stare listlessly at walls.
Eventually one major character grows so desperate that they take a gun and put a bullet through their own head.
The final four (the four T's) find strange memories of past lives on earth. Buying groceries, playing "All Along the Watchtower" to the woman they loved, and all knowing each other.
And Tigh, the lone voice to keep fighting on, does so and with his strength finds a vision of the Final Cylon and who they truly are. It's his wife, dead by his hand, Ellen Tigh.
The biggest mindfrak of the entire episode is Kara searching for the source of the transmission. She finds it, all right, and she really does not like what she finds. The remains of a ruined Viper, torn to shreds, with her tail number and a corpse in the cockpit. Its face has been burnt clean away, but a shock of blonde hair peaks out from the helmet and the dogs tags that have been laced through Zach Adama's ring tell her exactly who died in the Viper; K. Thrace.
I have some speculation to insert here, too.
Kara is the Harbinger of Death.
Humanity has to be reborn. Like the Cylons of earth.
She's the key to how to use the device that Ellen Tigh refers to in Saul Tigh's vision. 'Everything is in place, our rebirth is assured'.
Everyone must die to be saved, just like Kara died.
Because that corpse on Earth is, in fact, the Kara Thrace that a woman on Caprica gave birth to, that was engaged to Zach Adama, and travelled billions of miles until her Viper was sucked through a spacial anomaly and dropped head first onto a destroyed planet.
Whatever is calling herself Kara Thrace now is no longer a member of the race Homo Sapiens.
It was a very good episode. There are some serious answers and a ton more questions. And it hurts in a very painful, owie sort of way. This is easily the darkest, most angst filled episode since the premiere where twelve planets were nuked. Maybe even worse as you see the hopes of 39,651 people dashed against the rocks.
It was, frankly, exhausting to watch.
Update: Some rampant speculation --
Dream!Ellen's last words before an explosion destroys the room are: "It's ok, It's ok. Everything's in place. We'll be reborn. Again. Together."
Either humanity was replaced by force by humlons and centurions, or humanity evolved into humlons using the same type of resurrection tech that they used until the Hub was blown up.
And, perhaps, as a backup plan in case of disaster the humlons of earth had a set plan that would send five people to be reborn on the colonies. With psychological triggers and switches that would eventually lead them back home. Have they been reborn over and over again for 2000 years, or have they just recently been born?
It's obvious the seven models of the Cylons (Cavills and Leobens and Sixes, et al) refer to 'creators' and 'programmers' and don't usually question those directives (such as not thinking about the final five), especially the Cavills. I'm thinking that the Cylons did not actually evolve into humlon form on their own. They either acquired the seven original Cylons during the first war and twisted them to their own purposes and reproduced them over and over, or those seven found the Cylons and helped them along and because the reproduced and xeroxed things that they are now. The seven models then had to be programmed, specifically, not to look for the final five because as we saw in Crossroads, the humlons are drawn to each other. They try to find each other when switched on so they can find a way back to Earth.
Kara -- I think Kara is the first human to use whatever it is that the humlons of Earth used as a resurrection device in two thousand years. I don't know, yet, what sent her to earth, but it was somehow triggered by her death on the planet. It immediately fabricated her a new Viper, clothing, and herself and then sent her back the way she had come. It's probably the device that was able to resurrect the final five on the colonies and is probably vastly powerful tech. The future of the human race will factor into finding it.
The reason earth might have been destroyed... remember the stories of the one Lord of Kobol that became jealous of the others? That is sometimes thought to be the one god or the jealous god of the Cylons? Perhaps he was a rogue leader/scientist that developed the immortality technology and after much disagreements (and perhaps a failed experiment on Kobol -- remember, anyone who dies on Kobol is beyond the sight of the gods and their soul is lost -- a reference to a faulty resurrection machine?) the tribes split. The Colonies are formed and the Jealous God and his followers inhabit Earth. The Lords of Kobol never went to the colonies. Perhaps they brought nuclear destruction to earth? Out of vengeance against their wayward brother. This is why the way to earth was so convoluted. Earth didn't really want to be found.
Whew. .
Let me start off by saying, "Wow, what the FRAK?"
That entire episode felt like a colossal, depressing mindfrak from start to finish. It is, essentially all about the loss of hope, which is what a destroyed Earth would represent to the Fleet. All their dreams, hopes, and desires come crashing down around them and everyone suffers for it. Every character seems sapped and drained throughout. As the episode progresses, you can watch the hallways of the Galactica degenerate from their normal, organic business to dingy and dull and full of despair. Grafitti eventually covers the walls and trash lines the floor as people huddle in corners or stare listlessly at walls.
Eventually one major character grows so desperate that they take a gun and put a bullet through their own head.
The final four (the four T's) find strange memories of past lives on earth. Buying groceries, playing "All Along the Watchtower" to the woman they loved, and all knowing each other.
And Tigh, the lone voice to keep fighting on, does so and with his strength finds a vision of the Final Cylon and who they truly are. It's his wife, dead by his hand, Ellen Tigh.
The biggest mindfrak of the entire episode is Kara searching for the source of the transmission. She finds it, all right, and she really does not like what she finds. The remains of a ruined Viper, torn to shreds, with her tail number and a corpse in the cockpit. Its face has been burnt clean away, but a shock of blonde hair peaks out from the helmet and the dogs tags that have been laced through Zach Adama's ring tell her exactly who died in the Viper; K. Thrace.
I have some speculation to insert here, too.
Kara is the Harbinger of Death.
Humanity has to be reborn. Like the Cylons of earth.
She's the key to how to use the device that Ellen Tigh refers to in Saul Tigh's vision. 'Everything is in place, our rebirth is assured'.
Everyone must die to be saved, just like Kara died.
Because that corpse on Earth is, in fact, the Kara Thrace that a woman on Caprica gave birth to, that was engaged to Zach Adama, and travelled billions of miles until her Viper was sucked through a spacial anomaly and dropped head first onto a destroyed planet.
Whatever is calling herself Kara Thrace now is no longer a member of the race Homo Sapiens.
It was a very good episode. There are some serious answers and a ton more questions. And it hurts in a very painful, owie sort of way. This is easily the darkest, most angst filled episode since the premiere where twelve planets were nuked. Maybe even worse as you see the hopes of 39,651 people dashed against the rocks.
It was, frankly, exhausting to watch.
Update: Some rampant speculation --
Dream!Ellen's last words before an explosion destroys the room are: "It's ok, It's ok. Everything's in place. We'll be reborn. Again. Together."
Either humanity was replaced by force by humlons and centurions, or humanity evolved into humlons using the same type of resurrection tech that they used until the Hub was blown up.
And, perhaps, as a backup plan in case of disaster the humlons of earth had a set plan that would send five people to be reborn on the colonies. With psychological triggers and switches that would eventually lead them back home. Have they been reborn over and over again for 2000 years, or have they just recently been born?
It's obvious the seven models of the Cylons (Cavills and Leobens and Sixes, et al) refer to 'creators' and 'programmers' and don't usually question those directives (such as not thinking about the final five), especially the Cavills. I'm thinking that the Cylons did not actually evolve into humlon form on their own. They either acquired the seven original Cylons during the first war and twisted them to their own purposes and reproduced them over and over, or those seven found the Cylons and helped them along and because the reproduced and xeroxed things that they are now. The seven models then had to be programmed, specifically, not to look for the final five because as we saw in Crossroads, the humlons are drawn to each other. They try to find each other when switched on so they can find a way back to Earth.
Kara -- I think Kara is the first human to use whatever it is that the humlons of Earth used as a resurrection device in two thousand years. I don't know, yet, what sent her to earth, but it was somehow triggered by her death on the planet. It immediately fabricated her a new Viper, clothing, and herself and then sent her back the way she had come. It's probably the device that was able to resurrect the final five on the colonies and is probably vastly powerful tech. The future of the human race will factor into finding it.
The reason earth might have been destroyed... remember the stories of the one Lord of Kobol that became jealous of the others? That is sometimes thought to be the one god or the jealous god of the Cylons? Perhaps he was a rogue leader/scientist that developed the immortality technology and after much disagreements (and perhaps a failed experiment on Kobol -- remember, anyone who dies on Kobol is beyond the sight of the gods and their soul is lost -- a reference to a faulty resurrection machine?) the tribes split. The Colonies are formed and the Jealous God and his followers inhabit Earth. The Lords of Kobol never went to the colonies. Perhaps they brought nuclear destruction to earth? Out of vengeance against their wayward brother. This is why the way to earth was so convoluted. Earth didn't really want to be found.
Whew. .