Review of Battlestar Galactica 4x17: "Someone To Watch Over Me"
I'm going to do something a little different in my meta about this particular episode (and possibly go very deep into over-analysis, so be warned)...
My Own Possibly Completely Wrong Answers
To Frequently Asked Snark About BSG 417
What the hell is the point of the opening sequence? I get it, Kara's depressed. But this whole episode just has a repeat of her conflicts in "Maelstrom."
The Kara we saw in "Maelstrom," in Lee's own words, had absolutely nothing holding her together besides her identity as a pilot. She also had absolutely no hope that anything more than that to live for was ever going to fall into her lap. But she seemed to be getting a little too unstable to handle the job, which was what was driving her over the edge. (Of course, whether all the disturbing visions and dreams that were making her so uneasy were from without and not within and therefore don't mean she really was going kind of crazy is probably debatable.)
But Kara now still has a duty to perform and seems perfectly capable of doing it day after day. Maybe the way this opening montage emphasizes the exhausting mundaneness of it is showing us that it's not enough for her anymore. Not now that she's known what it's like to have something more. When she knew she could get the fleet to Earth she felt like she had purpose, and now she's more confused about what she's been meant to do than ever. She doesn't seem to have a death wish anymore; she wants that feeling she had when she first returned back. But like Daddy says, "Sometimes lost is where you need to be." I interpreted the ending with her playing the piano music for Anders and staying by his side to mean that she might be starting to regain some hope that she can still find all the answers and he could wake up.
I don't know about anyone else, and maybe I'm just automatically seeing things through the lens of thoughts that have already occurred to me, but that revealing shot of Kara's body in the shower at an angle that shows her tattoos seemed to accomplish in a few seconds what I had to use up a few paragraphs examining in the last fic I wrote: it's not the first time we've had it subtly pointed out to us that Kara still has her tattoos, which is one thing that's pretty difficult to explain even if she was brought back with resurrection technology. And it's also just a sort of vulnerable-looking way to show her. Kara's not comfortable in her own body right now. She doesn't know what it is, which is what we can see so clearly she's wondering in that shot of her holding the flame to her hand.
And on another note, who didn't love the thing with the toothpaste? Heheh. And "Wank as little as possible, conserve your 02." HAHAHA.
How frakking stupid can the Chief be? What did he think was in the case?
Food. Like we saw being packed into lots of cases for six-day missions like the one Athena was about to do in the opening scenes of the episode. Just a guess.
Not that he wasn't acting on what he wanted to believe and was being incredibly smart with that whole plan. Heh. But I really can't blame him. Chief is totally getting the shaft from everywhere and everyone lately. It makes sense to me that he would start thinking it was where he went wrong when he kept trying to overcome his feelings for Boomer and he'd make a choice to betray everyone else for her, because everything else in his life since then has failed and time and certain revelations about his true nature have shown that there was no good reason for them to give up on each other back then. If the way their story has concluded shows us anything, it's that people both being Cylons doesn't automatically make them belong together by any means. (I'm more and more amused all the time by how the Final Five discovering what they are hasn't necessarily made them really close. Kara seems to be one of the only people who's really concerned about Sam's life as opposed to the information he can give.)
So isn't it pretty obvious now that Baltar's been projecting Head Six all along?
.....No?
Chief's a Cylon. Baltar's not. This is the first time we've seen that Cylons can share projections with each other and that the Final Five can project at all, but I don't understand how this leads anyone to think an absent someone has been giving Baltar projections of his ex-girlfriend.
I think some fans are getting way carried away analyzing the "head characters" these days. Head Papa Thrace, Head Elosha, Head Baltar, etc can pretty much easily be explained as just being other characters' thought processes being channeled through characters who they're thinking of or who used to give them guidance. I'm sure Starbuck was just figuring out how she used to play the song herself and was thinking everything to herself that we saw her saying out loud; it's not like she was sitting at the bar talking out loud to herself like a lunatic. Same with Roslin when she kept having revelations about herself during jumps on the basestar. And I've become quite certain that Six was always just projecting Baltar as Cylons can do, pure and simple. Head Leoben in "Maelstrom" and of course Head Six, I think, are the only visions which I think aren't so easy to explain and actually seem real in some sense.
How does all this character development regarding Kara and her father have anything to do with anything besides being a convenient way to reveal (or at least strongly imply so far) he was a Seven?
To me the story with Kara and her father is surprisingly believable and makes a lot of sense even after they've either deliberately avoided or neglected telling us much about him before now. And I thought the scenes with them were really engaging, and the moment when the familiar melody finally came up was totally awesome, even though I'd already guessed who he was.
What we found out about their relationship fits very well with the ideas stated before about how she "learned the wrong lesson" from her parents. Her father was a sensitive person who gave her love, approval, affection, creativity. Everything she needed to not become the basketcase she did. Then he abandoned her, so Kara had so much anger against him she never touched a piano again.
Ever since I've known several creators connected to BSG to have hinted that music is an important theme in the ending of the series, I've wondered if it will somehow represent the more positive side of humanity: the artistic, creative, loving, progressive side as opposed to the extremely ugly and destructive side of human nature that this series has already thoroughly illustrated in all ways possible since the beginning. The first line ever spoken in the show is "Are you alive?" On many occasions it has examined how there is a definite difference between living and just surviving. Starbuck, with her cynical comments in response to her dad's reasons for working hard at composing one song, is obviously one of many characters who doesn't seem to be really living right now.
But in the whole time we've known her as a pilot who doesn't know how to do anything but fight, sometimes we've actually seen different sides of her shine through. We found out she used to paint and enjoys the recordings of her father's piano music. We even know there's a slightly maternal side to Kara that's in there somewhere (and yes, I was paying very close attention to the adorable interaction between her and Hera which might have looked out-of-character before the Kasey storyline...Not to mention I've considered lately that her overreaction to Hotdog's comment about her frakking half the fleet and having nothing to show for it might indicate she has some sensitivity to that idea ever since New Caprica). It's not really the kind of character development I was expecting to see for Kara soon, but nevertheless it seems like very important stuff that she's learning to appreciate what she was given from her father despite how he left her, slowly struggling in tears to play the notes and feel something (even if it's "happy and sad at the same time") and live when this kind of thing is what she's so very not used to doing.
I understand why a lot of people are frustrated with how alone Kara seems to be lately. But just look at how she was unable to really appreciate the gesture Helo did make in trying to give all her old stuff back to her (gods, could he be more of a sweetheart? <3). Nobody can really be there for her right now because they have no idea about the depths of what she's going through. She's profoundly alone right now because she's yet to tell anyone about what she found on Earth. She has practically deliberately isolated herself, perhaps in a noble way to spare others like Lee the burden. Sure, everybody does know she's dealing with her husband being in a coma, but I doubt Papadama has the strength right now to give anyone else much support, and no matter what we Piloticians shippers want to think I just don't see how it would be appropriate for Lee to be the one to talk to her about it.
Were Roslin and Adama horribly unsympathetic about Boomer or what?
Yeah. Kinda. Seriously, I love you, Laura, but every once in a while saying "I'm sorry, but..." instead of almost patronizingly lecturing people about their feelings being used would be okay. It wouldn't make you any less of a badass when you're going to sign the thing anyway. LOL. I no longer misunderstand Tyrol's reason for voting to leave at all if this is how much they appreciate him.
In other news, I can completely understand why Adama doesn't have his act together anymore. This alliance with the Cylons and the way they're having to accept their help to repair the ship might as well signify their final defeat. He's been leading in a war against them for years only for them to get to a point that they're so powerless he has no choice but to lie down and give them whatever they want - citizenship, representation, Boomer - to maintain this fragile alliance. But yeah...it's getting a little old and tedious to watch week after week. At least Laura's condition taking a turn for the worse (as if she's dead already, yeah right) will probably make him wake up and start...like...doing something again.
How would Helo NOT BE ABLE TO TELL? WTF?
I know. Ouch. :( I think it's quite possible Boomer has Athena's memories from her last download and knows a lot of little details about how to pretend to be her.
It was so devastating to see this happen to Helo and Athena, and like so many things in BSG, remarkably made me think, Yes, this is exactly the kind of effect this would have on someone even though it's a situation that's not completely comparable to anything that can happen in real life. There's no reason we can actually blame Helo for not being able to tell the difference, but at the same time it's totally understandable that she would be extremely hurt by it and Boomer was probably enjoying it for this very reason.
Generally I'm very happy to see something really big finally happening with Hera and that she's apparently going to have more than just a kind of symbolic importance. Things happening are good. Haha.
My Own Possibly Completely Wrong Answers
To Frequently Asked Snark About BSG 417
What the hell is the point of the opening sequence? I get it, Kara's depressed. But this whole episode just has a repeat of her conflicts in "Maelstrom."
The Kara we saw in "Maelstrom," in Lee's own words, had absolutely nothing holding her together besides her identity as a pilot. She also had absolutely no hope that anything more than that to live for was ever going to fall into her lap. But she seemed to be getting a little too unstable to handle the job, which was what was driving her over the edge. (Of course, whether all the disturbing visions and dreams that were making her so uneasy were from without and not within and therefore don't mean she really was going kind of crazy is probably debatable.)
But Kara now still has a duty to perform and seems perfectly capable of doing it day after day. Maybe the way this opening montage emphasizes the exhausting mundaneness of it is showing us that it's not enough for her anymore. Not now that she's known what it's like to have something more. When she knew she could get the fleet to Earth she felt like she had purpose, and now she's more confused about what she's been meant to do than ever. She doesn't seem to have a death wish anymore; she wants that feeling she had when she first returned back. But like Daddy says, "Sometimes lost is where you need to be." I interpreted the ending with her playing the piano music for Anders and staying by his side to mean that she might be starting to regain some hope that she can still find all the answers and he could wake up.
I don't know about anyone else, and maybe I'm just automatically seeing things through the lens of thoughts that have already occurred to me, but that revealing shot of Kara's body in the shower at an angle that shows her tattoos seemed to accomplish in a few seconds what I had to use up a few paragraphs examining in the last fic I wrote: it's not the first time we've had it subtly pointed out to us that Kara still has her tattoos, which is one thing that's pretty difficult to explain even if she was brought back with resurrection technology. And it's also just a sort of vulnerable-looking way to show her. Kara's not comfortable in her own body right now. She doesn't know what it is, which is what we can see so clearly she's wondering in that shot of her holding the flame to her hand.
And on another note, who didn't love the thing with the toothpaste? Heheh. And "Wank as little as possible, conserve your 02." HAHAHA.
How frakking stupid can the Chief be? What did he think was in the case?
Food. Like we saw being packed into lots of cases for six-day missions like the one Athena was about to do in the opening scenes of the episode. Just a guess.
Not that he wasn't acting on what he wanted to believe and was being incredibly smart with that whole plan. Heh. But I really can't blame him. Chief is totally getting the shaft from everywhere and everyone lately. It makes sense to me that he would start thinking it was where he went wrong when he kept trying to overcome his feelings for Boomer and he'd make a choice to betray everyone else for her, because everything else in his life since then has failed and time and certain revelations about his true nature have shown that there was no good reason for them to give up on each other back then. If the way their story has concluded shows us anything, it's that people both being Cylons doesn't automatically make them belong together by any means. (I'm more and more amused all the time by how the Final Five discovering what they are hasn't necessarily made them really close. Kara seems to be one of the only people who's really concerned about Sam's life as opposed to the information he can give.)
So isn't it pretty obvious now that Baltar's been projecting Head Six all along?
.....No?
Chief's a Cylon. Baltar's not. This is the first time we've seen that Cylons can share projections with each other and that the Final Five can project at all, but I don't understand how this leads anyone to think an absent someone has been giving Baltar projections of his ex-girlfriend.
I think some fans are getting way carried away analyzing the "head characters" these days. Head Papa Thrace, Head Elosha, Head Baltar, etc can pretty much easily be explained as just being other characters' thought processes being channeled through characters who they're thinking of or who used to give them guidance. I'm sure Starbuck was just figuring out how she used to play the song herself and was thinking everything to herself that we saw her saying out loud; it's not like she was sitting at the bar talking out loud to herself like a lunatic. Same with Roslin when she kept having revelations about herself during jumps on the basestar. And I've become quite certain that Six was always just projecting Baltar as Cylons can do, pure and simple. Head Leoben in "Maelstrom" and of course Head Six, I think, are the only visions which I think aren't so easy to explain and actually seem real in some sense.
How does all this character development regarding Kara and her father have anything to do with anything besides being a convenient way to reveal (or at least strongly imply so far) he was a Seven?
To me the story with Kara and her father is surprisingly believable and makes a lot of sense even after they've either deliberately avoided or neglected telling us much about him before now. And I thought the scenes with them were really engaging, and the moment when the familiar melody finally came up was totally awesome, even though I'd already guessed who he was.
What we found out about their relationship fits very well with the ideas stated before about how she "learned the wrong lesson" from her parents. Her father was a sensitive person who gave her love, approval, affection, creativity. Everything she needed to not become the basketcase she did. Then he abandoned her, so Kara had so much anger against him she never touched a piano again.
Ever since I've known several creators connected to BSG to have hinted that music is an important theme in the ending of the series, I've wondered if it will somehow represent the more positive side of humanity: the artistic, creative, loving, progressive side as opposed to the extremely ugly and destructive side of human nature that this series has already thoroughly illustrated in all ways possible since the beginning. The first line ever spoken in the show is "Are you alive?" On many occasions it has examined how there is a definite difference between living and just surviving. Starbuck, with her cynical comments in response to her dad's reasons for working hard at composing one song, is obviously one of many characters who doesn't seem to be really living right now.
But in the whole time we've known her as a pilot who doesn't know how to do anything but fight, sometimes we've actually seen different sides of her shine through. We found out she used to paint and enjoys the recordings of her father's piano music. We even know there's a slightly maternal side to Kara that's in there somewhere (and yes, I was paying very close attention to the adorable interaction between her and Hera which might have looked out-of-character before the Kasey storyline...Not to mention I've considered lately that her overreaction to Hotdog's comment about her frakking half the fleet and having nothing to show for it might indicate she has some sensitivity to that idea ever since New Caprica). It's not really the kind of character development I was expecting to see for Kara soon, but nevertheless it seems like very important stuff that she's learning to appreciate what she was given from her father despite how he left her, slowly struggling in tears to play the notes and feel something (even if it's "happy and sad at the same time") and live when this kind of thing is what she's so very not used to doing.
I understand why a lot of people are frustrated with how alone Kara seems to be lately. But just look at how she was unable to really appreciate the gesture Helo did make in trying to give all her old stuff back to her (gods, could he be more of a sweetheart? <3). Nobody can really be there for her right now because they have no idea about the depths of what she's going through. She's profoundly alone right now because she's yet to tell anyone about what she found on Earth. She has practically deliberately isolated herself, perhaps in a noble way to spare others like Lee the burden. Sure, everybody does know she's dealing with her husband being in a coma, but I doubt Papadama has the strength right now to give anyone else much support, and no matter what we Piloticians shippers want to think I just don't see how it would be appropriate for Lee to be the one to talk to her about it.
Were Roslin and Adama horribly unsympathetic about Boomer or what?
Yeah. Kinda. Seriously, I love you, Laura, but every once in a while saying "I'm sorry, but..." instead of almost patronizingly lecturing people about their feelings being used would be okay. It wouldn't make you any less of a badass when you're going to sign the thing anyway. LOL. I no longer misunderstand Tyrol's reason for voting to leave at all if this is how much they appreciate him.
In other news, I can completely understand why Adama doesn't have his act together anymore. This alliance with the Cylons and the way they're having to accept their help to repair the ship might as well signify their final defeat. He's been leading in a war against them for years only for them to get to a point that they're so powerless he has no choice but to lie down and give them whatever they want - citizenship, representation, Boomer - to maintain this fragile alliance. But yeah...it's getting a little old and tedious to watch week after week. At least Laura's condition taking a turn for the worse (as if she's dead already, yeah right) will probably make him wake up and start...like...doing something again.
How would Helo NOT BE ABLE TO TELL? WTF?
I know. Ouch. :( I think it's quite possible Boomer has Athena's memories from her last download and knows a lot of little details about how to pretend to be her.
It was so devastating to see this happen to Helo and Athena, and like so many things in BSG, remarkably made me think, Yes, this is exactly the kind of effect this would have on someone even though it's a situation that's not completely comparable to anything that can happen in real life. There's no reason we can actually blame Helo for not being able to tell the difference, but at the same time it's totally understandable that she would be extremely hurt by it and Boomer was probably enjoying it for this very reason.
Generally I'm very happy to see something really big finally happening with Hera and that she's apparently going to have more than just a kind of symbolic importance. Things happening are good. Haha.