"You feel their suffering."
BSG 4.07 - "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?"
It seems like the theme of whether or not humanity deserves to survive is being honed to a finer point: what embodies the worthy qualities of humanity, and how those qualities find their level. (It is no longer adequate to say, "What makes people human," since so many of the people here aren't.) And so Gaeta's phantom limb becomes an emblem of the costs of conflict, and of empathy and connection.
We finally see why Laura has held herself apart: in assuming the burden of carrying the entire fate of the fleet in her hands, she has lost her understanding for the people she's actually trying to protect. It was such a relief to see Lee make that point to her, and for her to engage in a course correction, because her disconnection had not only spawned some alarming political decisions but left her profoundly isolated, on a personal level, from people who care about her. Lee felt the suffering of the individual human beings who made up the Quorum; Laura had stopped noticing. The show has consistently shown humanity's messy love and anguish as its source of strength; and although Laura never trusts Natalie, it seems that by the end of the episode she's let herself become more open to the possibility of other connections, between her and the Six and Athena, between the humans and the Cylons, of Kara's place in this drama.
It's important, then, that the trade offered by the rebel Cylons is also premised on suffering: without mortality, they lack an important understanding of what it means to be alive, a meaning for their existence. It's the biggest thing that still separates Cylon and human. The rebel Cylons can't go home again, but they still want a connection to something. Natalie offered the resurrection hub location to Laura explicitly in terms of vengeance, though, because she's still invested in the cycle; Laura takes it as a way of making sure the Cylons can't come back, because she is too; both sides have secret plans, because neither can trust the other. They aren't ending it; they're propelling it along.
In the meantime, people are making all kinds of connections. Sam, the Cylon, is haunted by what he did to Gaeta, feels his suffering. (Baltar does too, which is interesting, and, in one brief shot, gives us a strong hint about where he lies on the human/inhuman continuum at this point.) Tory, the Cylon, has been playing games with people, and is surprised that they aren't as dumb as she thought. (Laura's smackdown, razor-sharp and utilitarian, was excellent on many levels, not the least because in telling Tory to spy on Baltar for her, and decisively rejecting Tory's claim to friendship and understanding, she turned the game back on her. The difference between the two women was that Laura secretly hated doing it, while Tory hadn't had enough awareness of other people as people, with feelings and hopes of their own, to really think about what she was doing until it was too late.) Tigh, the Cylon, issues a weapons hold because he knows something, inchoate and unformed, inexplicable, about the Cylons; the man determined to carry on most like nothing's changed is receiving signals. Laura and Kara finally connect, over Laura's shared visions and Kara's received prophecy and--finally, after the division at the beginning of the season--their long shared history as partners in this quest. And Laura connects with Baltar over the vision in the opera house, and his relationship to the Six in his head and Hera, the hybrid child, the phycial manifestation of the connection of the two species, who is drawn to Natalie. Six told Baltar, at the beginning of Season 2, that the child was theirs; I never understood what that meant, and am glad the show hasn't dropped it.
And in an episode that put in place so many crucial connections, the role of absence is also glaring. The "missing" final five, on whom everyone pins so many disparate hopes; Kara believes they've been to Earth, while four of the five, who have no idea what role they play in this, just want to keep from being detected. D'Anna, the boxed threes, who has seen their faces. The Daedalus, missing from the first jump into the fleet, and the panic that spawns. The basestar's jump at the end, taking Laura and Baltar with it.
I'm not entirely sure what to make of the degree of mysticism in the show at this point; it's always been there, but it's driving more and more of the action. But I like that all of the elements are connecting up.
ETA: Also, I totally covet the Eights' cute little vintagey lace cardigan and want to figure out how to make one.
On the other hand, Moonlight was wretched. Its cancellation actually gives me a scintilla of faith in network programming. And maybe I'm a bad fan, but while I certainly don't begrudge Claudia Black the paycheck, I also am not sure my life was made more complete by having seen her for a minute and a half in questionable/cringeworthy costuming, makeup, and hair choices, reciting terrible dialogue in a bad American accent. What a crying waste of talent.
It seems like the theme of whether or not humanity deserves to survive is being honed to a finer point: what embodies the worthy qualities of humanity, and how those qualities find their level. (It is no longer adequate to say, "What makes people human," since so many of the people here aren't.) And so Gaeta's phantom limb becomes an emblem of the costs of conflict, and of empathy and connection.
We finally see why Laura has held herself apart: in assuming the burden of carrying the entire fate of the fleet in her hands, she has lost her understanding for the people she's actually trying to protect. It was such a relief to see Lee make that point to her, and for her to engage in a course correction, because her disconnection had not only spawned some alarming political decisions but left her profoundly isolated, on a personal level, from people who care about her. Lee felt the suffering of the individual human beings who made up the Quorum; Laura had stopped noticing. The show has consistently shown humanity's messy love and anguish as its source of strength; and although Laura never trusts Natalie, it seems that by the end of the episode she's let herself become more open to the possibility of other connections, between her and the Six and Athena, between the humans and the Cylons, of Kara's place in this drama.
It's important, then, that the trade offered by the rebel Cylons is also premised on suffering: without mortality, they lack an important understanding of what it means to be alive, a meaning for their existence. It's the biggest thing that still separates Cylon and human. The rebel Cylons can't go home again, but they still want a connection to something. Natalie offered the resurrection hub location to Laura explicitly in terms of vengeance, though, because she's still invested in the cycle; Laura takes it as a way of making sure the Cylons can't come back, because she is too; both sides have secret plans, because neither can trust the other. They aren't ending it; they're propelling it along.
In the meantime, people are making all kinds of connections. Sam, the Cylon, is haunted by what he did to Gaeta, feels his suffering. (Baltar does too, which is interesting, and, in one brief shot, gives us a strong hint about where he lies on the human/inhuman continuum at this point.) Tory, the Cylon, has been playing games with people, and is surprised that they aren't as dumb as she thought. (Laura's smackdown, razor-sharp and utilitarian, was excellent on many levels, not the least because in telling Tory to spy on Baltar for her, and decisively rejecting Tory's claim to friendship and understanding, she turned the game back on her. The difference between the two women was that Laura secretly hated doing it, while Tory hadn't had enough awareness of other people as people, with feelings and hopes of their own, to really think about what she was doing until it was too late.) Tigh, the Cylon, issues a weapons hold because he knows something, inchoate and unformed, inexplicable, about the Cylons; the man determined to carry on most like nothing's changed is receiving signals. Laura and Kara finally connect, over Laura's shared visions and Kara's received prophecy and--finally, after the division at the beginning of the season--their long shared history as partners in this quest. And Laura connects with Baltar over the vision in the opera house, and his relationship to the Six in his head and Hera, the hybrid child, the phycial manifestation of the connection of the two species, who is drawn to Natalie. Six told Baltar, at the beginning of Season 2, that the child was theirs; I never understood what that meant, and am glad the show hasn't dropped it.
And in an episode that put in place so many crucial connections, the role of absence is also glaring. The "missing" final five, on whom everyone pins so many disparate hopes; Kara believes they've been to Earth, while four of the five, who have no idea what role they play in this, just want to keep from being detected. D'Anna, the boxed threes, who has seen their faces. The Daedalus, missing from the first jump into the fleet, and the panic that spawns. The basestar's jump at the end, taking Laura and Baltar with it.
I'm not entirely sure what to make of the degree of mysticism in the show at this point; it's always been there, but it's driving more and more of the action. But I like that all of the elements are connecting up.
ETA: Also, I totally covet the Eights' cute little vintagey lace cardigan and want to figure out how to make one.
On the other hand, Moonlight was wretched. Its cancellation actually gives me a scintilla of faith in network programming. And maybe I'm a bad fan, but while I certainly don't begrudge Claudia Black the paycheck, I also am not sure my life was made more complete by having seen her for a minute and a half in questionable/cringeworthy costuming, makeup, and hair choices, reciting terrible dialogue in a bad American accent. What a crying waste of talent.