The Butterfly Soul
My first reactions to the episode.
So these are just some quick notes on what first came to mind when I watched. I don't think I'll have time to write more until months later, sadly! But there's much to ponder. Trust, forgiveness, what makes humanity worthy of survival, life and death and giving life meaning -- I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Butterflies
Something cool I noticed in the earliest scene when Laura received the vision of Elosha during the jumps (which is interesting in and of itself -- does the space between jumps count as the space between life and death? Is that what the Hybrid is tapped into all the time? I think that likely) --
Anyhow. Laura was wearing a very distinctive scarf, one we've never seen before, adorned with butterflies. And this made me very gleeful, because the butterfly is the Greek symbol of the soul, the psuche (or psyche). The psuche is often said to "fly and flutter away on wing" from the body at the moment of death, and the same word can mean breath of life, soul, or butterfly. Whoa! That fit with Laura's appearance, with her own hair again, looking hale and healthy. That was her soul, her essential self, as opposed to her frail physical body (which she was able to observe as if from the outside). With the themes of death and resurrection--and all the souls of the Cylons which will not be born again--I thought that was amazing.
Elosha was Laura's first guide in spiritual matters, and vision-Elosha serves the same purpose here. "The body of a people is not the same as the body of its leader; but the soul and the spirit might be."
Crazy Space Families Still Rule
My crazy space family is acknowledged as such! Together! All in the same room! Kara turning to Lee, as she has done before, at the death of Kat (sob). Bill just holding her hand! Sniff. Even if it was just a vision, I loved every second of it.
And giving her his ring on her deathbed!
Hold me...
Real Death
They really took out the hub. THEY REALLY DID. All the Cavils and Dorals can die and I get my wish. Now I feel a bit heartless, but I'm interested in what's going to happen with the newly mortal Cylons left. And the Hybrid referred to the humans as "The Makers." The makers and the made together have destroyed their artificial, eternal life. ("And that's a good thing -- now we can begin to trust each other." Ah, not yet.)
And no more Natalie. Woe. I ADMIT IT, I held out hope for my girl somehow, someway to be reborn at that Hub, just as Bill will always hope that tomorrow he'll wake up and Laura's cancer will be gone. I know I might be the only one who cared but it seems like a sad waste of an interesting character. Yes, even though it is important to get across that Death Now Has Meaning for Cylons too.
ETA: What strikes me now is that the Cylons have death but do not yet have the means to reproduce or give birth without humans (or Special Final Five). This is why I think they can't go their separate ways.
Individuation through borrowing
The Eights have been sneaking peeks at Athena's memories! (As Leoben said to Athena: "They talk about you all the time.") This explains so much to me as to why there was a greater push in their model to question and rebel. They had indirect contact with humanity, and it spurred change. (Did other Sixes--especially Natalie--take peeks at Caprica's...?)
What's always been fascinating to me about Cylon culture was that they valued the preservation of memory, yet not true individuality that must naturally result from the accumulation of different experiences over time. Memories and experiences that prompt true change and growth lead to so-called "corruption" and bring the threat of boxing. Yet Athena was a rebel while her entire model was not boxed; her memories were not put into cold storage, apparently. (Even with the extreme move of boxing you have to notice that the memories aren't simply deleted and utterly destroyed; they are still preserved, just taken out of the accessible data stream.) So Athena left a trace of all her memories behind when she downloaded to get Hera. That makes sense that memory-downloading is part of the resurrection process; their memories are their souls.
This Is (not) Your Life
The new Eight, talking strategy with Helo. I shall call her Almost-Athena because she is sort of a stalker wannabe -- but in a good way! That moment with the Helo-neckrub was creepy, yet it made me remember that Athena was only ever able to take Boomer's place by drawing on all of Boomer's memories (including her memories of Helo). But I loved Almost-Athena's speech about how the human pilots had already trusted Athena in battle and her emergence as the new Cylon leader. But woe, alas for your (predictable) yet inevitable betrayal. Told ya it wasn't going to come easy. (And I guess Natalie's decision to call off the Cylon backup plan to doublecross in turn worked then? Still a bit confused about the details of that one...I guess the Centurions were successfully convinced.)
The emerging underclass
Was anything funnier than Laura and Gaius trying to shout at the Hybrid simultaneously? Gaius: "I am special, I get it, she likes me, watch how I do it!" Laura: "All you're doing is SHOUTING!" (I LOL'd; consulting an oracle doesn't work like that, y'all! Read your mythology.)
Speaking of Gaius: when he was preaching about God and oppression to the Cylon centurion, did anyone think that it was a huge mistake to take him onboard in the first place? But how funny that he'd already polished all his speeches about the underclass? (I will say it again: James Callis is a frakking genius.)
Laura's journey
Laura finally faced the extremity of her hatred for Baltar. Leaving him to die with his lifeblood slowly dripping out, his voice pleading for mercy as she turned away to pray with trembling hands...she couldn't face just airlocking him before, but the deeply personal desire to punish him with death was always there. His joyous proclamation that he was responsible for giving out the mainframe codes yet felt no guilt sent her over the edge. (And yeah, his doctrine is basically emotional white-out, isn't it? A magic "get out of genocide guilt free" card? I'd be furious too.) But is this something she has to let go? Vision-Elosha seemed to say so.
I feel her fixation on making him pay both before and after the trial has been blinding her to some extent, though she claimed she was the only one being pragmatic about her approach to him. She has been equating her more ruthless hardline strike-first tendencies with 'the only pragmatic thing' for quite some time now. And I sighed heavily when she dismissed Helo's concerns about the doublecross with "we can't afford to be sentimental, they'd do the same to us the second they had a chance." On a practical level, I thought it could be extremely risky for them if her doublecross was detected, seeing as they were all on a Cylon baseship and dependent upon them for jumping back to the Fleet. And the double-dealing was found out--and now it may have destroyed any further chance of cooperation between the two sides (and yes, I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I think that in the long term that alliance would be very handy and even be crucial to humanity's chances for survival...aren't there still baseships out there, filled with Cavils and Dorals and Simons who are still alive, though they have lost the ability to resurrect?).
But it's clear Laura doesn't think they'll ever need to truly cooperate with them and only ever planned on using this to get what she wanted. I expected that, yet still--I had some hope she'd eventually see some tactical potential beyond this. (I really think Almost!Athena was sincere about her hopes for a lasting partnership. That makes me even more sad.) And what in the hell is going to happen when they find out who the Five really are? They could tear themselves apart or go forward. Or perhaps they have to do the former to get the latter.
In any case: Bill (and now Lee) always talk about what makes humanity worthy of survival. I think Laura has a lot more to contemplate on that score too.
Will they be able to take that leap and trust or will they always be at war?
Laura and relationships
I'm still processing this one. There was the comment by vision-Elosha to her about how she hadn't quite killed their empathy (referring to Bill, Lee, and Kara). And her moment at the end there where she said "I love you" felt like a breakthrough. And yet...
I don't think the fact that she didn't say "I love you" before was a--failing exactly, even though at times I felt the episode may have been implying that. That she had cut herself off too much from basic human feeling. Yet I admire her very much because there are very good reasons why she had to wall a part of herself off and focus on her job (and very good reasons for the military and civilian leadership to not be involved on a romantic level). That said, it was a lovely moment. And parallels with Lee and Kara with "I missed you." They love each other. They need each other.
And Laura's still going to die.
***spoilers for the promo below***
The biggest question I have:
Is Adama's angst because he has discovered the truth about Tigh...or himself?
So these are just some quick notes on what first came to mind when I watched. I don't think I'll have time to write more until months later, sadly! But there's much to ponder. Trust, forgiveness, what makes humanity worthy of survival, life and death and giving life meaning -- I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Butterflies
Something cool I noticed in the earliest scene when Laura received the vision of Elosha during the jumps (which is interesting in and of itself -- does the space between jumps count as the space between life and death? Is that what the Hybrid is tapped into all the time? I think that likely) --
Anyhow. Laura was wearing a very distinctive scarf, one we've never seen before, adorned with butterflies. And this made me very gleeful, because the butterfly is the Greek symbol of the soul, the psuche (or psyche). The psuche is often said to "fly and flutter away on wing" from the body at the moment of death, and the same word can mean breath of life, soul, or butterfly. Whoa! That fit with Laura's appearance, with her own hair again, looking hale and healthy. That was her soul, her essential self, as opposed to her frail physical body (which she was able to observe as if from the outside). With the themes of death and resurrection--and all the souls of the Cylons which will not be born again--I thought that was amazing.
Elosha was Laura's first guide in spiritual matters, and vision-Elosha serves the same purpose here. "The body of a people is not the same as the body of its leader; but the soul and the spirit might be."
Crazy Space Families Still Rule
My crazy space family is acknowledged as such! Together! All in the same room! Kara turning to Lee, as she has done before, at the death of Kat (sob). Bill just holding her hand! Sniff. Even if it was just a vision, I loved every second of it.
And giving her his ring on her deathbed!
Hold me...
Real Death
They really took out the hub. THEY REALLY DID. All the Cavils and Dorals can die and I get my wish. Now I feel a bit heartless, but I'm interested in what's going to happen with the newly mortal Cylons left. And the Hybrid referred to the humans as "The Makers." The makers and the made together have destroyed their artificial, eternal life. ("And that's a good thing -- now we can begin to trust each other." Ah, not yet.)
And no more Natalie. Woe. I ADMIT IT, I held out hope for my girl somehow, someway to be reborn at that Hub, just as Bill will always hope that tomorrow he'll wake up and Laura's cancer will be gone. I know I might be the only one who cared but it seems like a sad waste of an interesting character. Yes, even though it is important to get across that Death Now Has Meaning for Cylons too.
ETA: What strikes me now is that the Cylons have death but do not yet have the means to reproduce or give birth without humans (or Special Final Five). This is why I think they can't go their separate ways.
Individuation through borrowing
The Eights have been sneaking peeks at Athena's memories! (As Leoben said to Athena: "They talk about you all the time.") This explains so much to me as to why there was a greater push in their model to question and rebel. They had indirect contact with humanity, and it spurred change. (Did other Sixes--especially Natalie--take peeks at Caprica's...?)
What's always been fascinating to me about Cylon culture was that they valued the preservation of memory, yet not true individuality that must naturally result from the accumulation of different experiences over time. Memories and experiences that prompt true change and growth lead to so-called "corruption" and bring the threat of boxing. Yet Athena was a rebel while her entire model was not boxed; her memories were not put into cold storage, apparently. (Even with the extreme move of boxing you have to notice that the memories aren't simply deleted and utterly destroyed; they are still preserved, just taken out of the accessible data stream.) So Athena left a trace of all her memories behind when she downloaded to get Hera. That makes sense that memory-downloading is part of the resurrection process; their memories are their souls.
This Is (not) Your Life
The new Eight, talking strategy with Helo. I shall call her Almost-Athena because she is sort of a stalker wannabe -- but in a good way! That moment with the Helo-neckrub was creepy, yet it made me remember that Athena was only ever able to take Boomer's place by drawing on all of Boomer's memories (including her memories of Helo). But I loved Almost-Athena's speech about how the human pilots had already trusted Athena in battle and her emergence as the new Cylon leader. But woe, alas for your (predictable) yet inevitable betrayal. Told ya it wasn't going to come easy. (And I guess Natalie's decision to call off the Cylon backup plan to doublecross in turn worked then? Still a bit confused about the details of that one...I guess the Centurions were successfully convinced.)
The emerging underclass
Was anything funnier than Laura and Gaius trying to shout at the Hybrid simultaneously? Gaius: "I am special, I get it, she likes me, watch how I do it!" Laura: "All you're doing is SHOUTING!" (I LOL'd; consulting an oracle doesn't work like that, y'all! Read your mythology.)
Speaking of Gaius: when he was preaching about God and oppression to the Cylon centurion, did anyone think that it was a huge mistake to take him onboard in the first place? But how funny that he'd already polished all his speeches about the underclass? (I will say it again: James Callis is a frakking genius.)
Laura's journey
Laura finally faced the extremity of her hatred for Baltar. Leaving him to die with his lifeblood slowly dripping out, his voice pleading for mercy as she turned away to pray with trembling hands...she couldn't face just airlocking him before, but the deeply personal desire to punish him with death was always there. His joyous proclamation that he was responsible for giving out the mainframe codes yet felt no guilt sent her over the edge. (And yeah, his doctrine is basically emotional white-out, isn't it? A magic "get out of genocide guilt free" card? I'd be furious too.) But is this something she has to let go? Vision-Elosha seemed to say so.
I feel her fixation on making him pay both before and after the trial has been blinding her to some extent, though she claimed she was the only one being pragmatic about her approach to him. She has been equating her more ruthless hardline strike-first tendencies with 'the only pragmatic thing' for quite some time now. And I sighed heavily when she dismissed Helo's concerns about the doublecross with "we can't afford to be sentimental, they'd do the same to us the second they had a chance." On a practical level, I thought it could be extremely risky for them if her doublecross was detected, seeing as they were all on a Cylon baseship and dependent upon them for jumping back to the Fleet. And the double-dealing was found out--and now it may have destroyed any further chance of cooperation between the two sides (and yes, I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I think that in the long term that alliance would be very handy and even be crucial to humanity's chances for survival...aren't there still baseships out there, filled with Cavils and Dorals and Simons who are still alive, though they have lost the ability to resurrect?).
But it's clear Laura doesn't think they'll ever need to truly cooperate with them and only ever planned on using this to get what she wanted. I expected that, yet still--I had some hope she'd eventually see some tactical potential beyond this. (I really think Almost!Athena was sincere about her hopes for a lasting partnership. That makes me even more sad.) And what in the hell is going to happen when they find out who the Five really are? They could tear themselves apart or go forward. Or perhaps they have to do the former to get the latter.
In any case: Bill (and now Lee) always talk about what makes humanity worthy of survival. I think Laura has a lot more to contemplate on that score too.
Will they be able to take that leap and trust or will they always be at war?
Laura and relationships
I'm still processing this one. There was the comment by vision-Elosha to her about how she hadn't quite killed their empathy (referring to Bill, Lee, and Kara). And her moment at the end there where she said "I love you" felt like a breakthrough. And yet...
I don't think the fact that she didn't say "I love you" before was a--failing exactly, even though at times I felt the episode may have been implying that. That she had cut herself off too much from basic human feeling. Yet I admire her very much because there are very good reasons why she had to wall a part of herself off and focus on her job (and very good reasons for the military and civilian leadership to not be involved on a romantic level). That said, it was a lovely moment. And parallels with Lee and Kara with "I missed you." They love each other. They need each other.
And Laura's still going to die.
***spoilers for the promo below***
The biggest question I have:
Is Adama's angst because he has discovered the truth about Tigh...or himself?