A brief history of the dead
BSG 4.19 - "Daybreak"
I don't have much to say about this episode; how do you analyze the first third of a whole? But I found myself really affected by the flashbacks to Caprica City, the glimpses of Lee and Kara and Laura and Baltar gong about their lives, with all of that private sorrow, in a lost world. We saw where they were when the bombs fell in the miniseries; somehow it seems fitting to see how they got there before the end. So:
And for all of them, it came down to family, family that they all lost when the colonies were destroyed, or even before that. So when Bill Adama tells Kara she's his daughter (there's no "like a" attached to it anymore), and paces the corridor scattered with abandoned photographs of people who have been forgotten because their own survivors are now dead, and then decides to go after Hera, I think it's the ultimate statement that they are all family now. That they were, each of them, made by the things and people that came before; that they all keep that lost world of their pasts and their histories alive inside them; it is what they are, and without it they are nothing.
So I will set aside the clumsiness of the device, because I cannot figure out for the life of me who would have put that photograph of the Agathons up on that wall. It seems unlikely that Athena would have roused herself out of her despair to do something like that; Helo definitely wouldn't have, since it would be admitting defeat. I guess it was lucky some stranger had one handy and put it on the wall so that Adama could have his epiphany.
* * * * *
TSCC 2.18 - "Today Is the Day"
This show makes me flaily with joy at this point. Even when individual things about an episode don't work, they're always so beautifully layered and complicated. It's just really well constructed.
I have long had a suspicion that Jessie could be a robot, and it got stronger in this episode. After all, the machines replaced Allison. But I think it's equally likely that whatever happens to her in the submarine, on an errand for John Connor, just makes her robot-like, kills something about her humanity. And if that's the case, I think she serves as a deliberate glimpse of future John Connor, the one who's very alone, whose entire life is his destiny, stripped of people he cares about, who make him vulnerable.
Future John Connor sends Jessie on that submarine mission without telling her about the stop; the metal knows, though, and there's more metal guarding what they're there to pick up, and that's obviously frightening to her on some level. (It's ironic that Derek, in the future, is so much more cynical about the terminators than she is; and evident that this is where her attitude started shifting.) John Connor has a strategy, and it involves moving pieces around--here and in the past--and in a lot of cases, those pieces are people.
And that's exactly what Jessie has done with Riley: crafted a situation, precisely, using other people's lives and feelings, to achieve the outcome she wants. She moves Riley's body when the time is right; she sets up the bar fight to explain the marks on her face, knowing that Derek will bail her out. And when she's not executing her plan, she just sits there and waits, empty of any other purpose.
That kind of manipulation is something John Henry is exploring too, in his own way. Catherine won't play a game with Savannah; but John Henry has set the building up to lure her down to him, complete with carnival music and flashing lights in the elevator. He's set up a puzzle, a problem to solve, and when Catherine realizes that, she wants to figure it out. Ellison is the only one in that situation who knows that people's lives are not a game; and he can try to teach John Henry that lesson, but can John Henry really learn it?
What's especially chilling about Cameron's conversation with Sarah about John's future is that it seems to be a lesson John unlearns at some point. He's already started--setting up the scenario with Riley's foster father, with Cameron's ability to mimic voices--but the ersatz Riley is too grotesque a mockery. Cameron's better at playing the game; she knew his reactions would sell their scene to the foster father better than anything else. It seems like he gets over that squeamishness at some point, and as much as Judgment Day, that seems like something worth preventing.
Heading stolen from this book, which is about, among other things, people who continue to exist in an afterlife for only as long as the living remember them.
I don't have much to say about this episode; how do you analyze the first third of a whole? But I found myself really affected by the flashbacks to Caprica City, the glimpses of Lee and Kara and Laura and Baltar gong about their lives, with all of that private sorrow, in a lost world. We saw where they were when the bombs fell in the miniseries; somehow it seems fitting to see how they got there before the end. So:
- Laura was alone, already the survivor of a small family apocalypse; she already knew how to pick herself up and get through the next day and the next week and the next months.
- Baltar wanted to be a good son, but he also wanted to stuff his father--the stubborn, loud reminder of his humble past--into a corner somewhere. He wanted gratitude, and he actually seemed to want the old man to be happy, and he couldn't figure out how to engineer either. And Caprica distinguished herself from the nameless crowd of groupies by doing it for him, just like she "helped" him with his work at the defense ministry later.
- Before Zak died, Kara was happy--funny, full of warmth, glowing. We've always kind of known that, but it's stunning now to see her without that edge of anger and self-doubt, before she took on the weight of that first death, and then the weight of all the others she felt responsible for.
- Lee, conversely, was miserable and frustrated, and possibly already in love with his brother's fiancee. (As a side note, what is up with the pigeons in houses on all of the shows about homicidal robots lately?!? Pigeons are GROSS. They are not beautiful, symbolic birds! They are RATS WITH WINGS.)
And for all of them, it came down to family, family that they all lost when the colonies were destroyed, or even before that. So when Bill Adama tells Kara she's his daughter (there's no "like a" attached to it anymore), and paces the corridor scattered with abandoned photographs of people who have been forgotten because their own survivors are now dead, and then decides to go after Hera, I think it's the ultimate statement that they are all family now. That they were, each of them, made by the things and people that came before; that they all keep that lost world of their pasts and their histories alive inside them; it is what they are, and without it they are nothing.
So I will set aside the clumsiness of the device, because I cannot figure out for the life of me who would have put that photograph of the Agathons up on that wall. It seems unlikely that Athena would have roused herself out of her despair to do something like that; Helo definitely wouldn't have, since it would be admitting defeat. I guess it was lucky some stranger had one handy and put it on the wall so that Adama could have his epiphany.
* * * * *
TSCC 2.18 - "Today Is the Day"
This show makes me flaily with joy at this point. Even when individual things about an episode don't work, they're always so beautifully layered and complicated. It's just really well constructed.
I have long had a suspicion that Jessie could be a robot, and it got stronger in this episode. After all, the machines replaced Allison. But I think it's equally likely that whatever happens to her in the submarine, on an errand for John Connor, just makes her robot-like, kills something about her humanity. And if that's the case, I think she serves as a deliberate glimpse of future John Connor, the one who's very alone, whose entire life is his destiny, stripped of people he cares about, who make him vulnerable.
Future John Connor sends Jessie on that submarine mission without telling her about the stop; the metal knows, though, and there's more metal guarding what they're there to pick up, and that's obviously frightening to her on some level. (It's ironic that Derek, in the future, is so much more cynical about the terminators than she is; and evident that this is where her attitude started shifting.) John Connor has a strategy, and it involves moving pieces around--here and in the past--and in a lot of cases, those pieces are people.
And that's exactly what Jessie has done with Riley: crafted a situation, precisely, using other people's lives and feelings, to achieve the outcome she wants. She moves Riley's body when the time is right; she sets up the bar fight to explain the marks on her face, knowing that Derek will bail her out. And when she's not executing her plan, she just sits there and waits, empty of any other purpose.
That kind of manipulation is something John Henry is exploring too, in his own way. Catherine won't play a game with Savannah; but John Henry has set the building up to lure her down to him, complete with carnival music and flashing lights in the elevator. He's set up a puzzle, a problem to solve, and when Catherine realizes that, she wants to figure it out. Ellison is the only one in that situation who knows that people's lives are not a game; and he can try to teach John Henry that lesson, but can John Henry really learn it?
What's especially chilling about Cameron's conversation with Sarah about John's future is that it seems to be a lesson John unlearns at some point. He's already started--setting up the scenario with Riley's foster father, with Cameron's ability to mimic voices--but the ersatz Riley is too grotesque a mockery. Cameron's better at playing the game; she knew his reactions would sell their scene to the foster father better than anything else. It seems like he gets over that squeamishness at some point, and as much as Judgment Day, that seems like something worth preventing.
Heading stolen from this book, which is about, among other things, people who continue to exist in an afterlife for only as long as the living remember them.