subtle-as-a-brick exploration of sexual taboos IN SPAAAAAAAAAAACE
I apologize so deeply for having forgotten this yesterday. Epiphanies may be triggery for reproductive coercion; Black Market may be triggery for human trafficking, questionable-consent sex work, and child sexual abuse.
Epiphanies
Oh. Laura. Jesus. I can't even look at her in pain. Having rage fits at Laura's Caprican doctor. "If we'd have caught it sooner, we could've done more"? YOU WERE A BAD SICK PERSON, SO YOU'RE GONNA DIE. If she's already dying, it's too late for a lecture on early detection, it's just cruel. Also doctors really like to LIE about what they COULD HAVE DONE if you would just STOP BEING SO STUPID AT THEM but oh, THEIR HANDS ARE TIED NOW so you'll just have to assume they're right with no base for comparison, it couldn't POSSIBLY be that they suck at their jobs or that they can't fix everything. I hope Six kicked the shit out of him.
And while I'm stoked to see Laura cancer-free (I knew she wasn't going to die in this episode, but for her to have hope for a complete recovery is something that I didn't come close to expecting), it's coming at a huge price. She got just a little more ruthless in what she thought were going to be her final days, whether because she wasn't going to have to live with the consequences or because circumstances finally necessitated it isn't entirely clear - is that going to stick with her, now that she thinks she might live to enjoy the fruits of her leadership? What's going to happen once Sharon comes to term? Will the kid be hooked up to a machine as the fountain of youth and endless healing? Will Sharon be hooked up to one now, given that she's on a ship full of potentially injured soldiers? Wouldn't be much different from the baby farms on Caprica.
But Laura heals, and she uses the lessons she learned from Adar's mistakes as well as the spine of chilled titanium she's found during her own leadership to be able to deal effectively with the situation. Love how Roslin and Adama don't even need to converse to play good cop-bad cop with the insurgent leader.
We saw the danger of top-down warlike power recently with Cain; now we're seeing bottom-up power from the domestic terrorists. (I'm sure some of them are genuine peaceful protesters, but they're also bombing people, so terrorists it is.) Do they know that Six is a Cylon leader?
God, Adar really was a prick. Strikers are criminals? I'm kind of uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of striking workers - who are within their rights - and violent terrorists who are colluding with genocidal machines, but the point is Roslin's endless reservoir of HBIC sauce, so I deal.
Grossed out by how everyone but Sharon is making decisions about and then discussing her uterus. But then, that's what's been happening the whole time, since she never really had a choice about loving or sleeping with Helo. Grace Park in this episode is astonishing. My heart just breaks for her. I am a little...ambivalent towards the fact that nobody considers whether there's already a hybrid baby or another hybrid pregnancy on board, since they're all aware they haven't identified all the Cylons. It seems to be about taking control of Sharon because there's nothing else they can control at the moment.
Clearly I have Feelings about the pregnancy storyline. I do find everyone's elision of Sharon and her fetus to be kind of worrisome. They talk about whether her actions merit special consideration for her baby and while it doesn't bother me to hear Sharon talk however she likes about her pregnancy, I do find it a little worrisome that the important judgment on Sharon's behavior is whether she'll be allowed to carry to term. There's not a whole lot of recognition that a forced abortion is a very disgusting violation of Sharon herself. It doesn't bother me that she's prioritizing and identifying herself with parenthood, it bothers me that everyone else seems to be doing so.
That said, I never thought I would hear the words "abort" and "fetus" in the same sentence on TV at all, let alone not used to shame the pregnant woman. Indeed, nobody seems too fussed about the idea of abortion in the abstract. Sharon and Helo want their baby, which isn't proscriptive in the least. Helo reaches a little for the moralizing because that is his Heloy Way, but mostly it's about them in particular. Nobody seems to have thought termination of the pregnancy was wrong in and of itself, they just weren't going to force her into anything. And ultimately, Sharon's choice is vindicated and then some. But, you know, I'll believe it when I see a character freely choose to go through an abortion and it's NBD. I LIVE IN HOPE, KIDS.
Six really picked the perfect mark in Gaius. He's just adolescent enough to think that political and military power is the best kind of power, better than what he has, but he's usually fairly cognizant of the fact that he's really not a person cut out for unilateral executive decision-making. Which is not bad, the world needs Gaiuses to ask abstract questions and put the brakes on us just as badly as we need Lauras to make decisions, but since he covets and admires the overt power he knows he's not going to be able to handle, he's subject to the whims of Six when she plays on his insecurities. And her suggestion that the struggle between Baltar and Roslin is "quite literally life and death" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It becomes life and death because of the terrible crime Baltar commits when he sends the nuke.
Gaius is such a schmuck. Laura's assessment of him is completely right. He hasn't actually done anything "for the fleet." He's done things for himself and for Six and for the destiny he believes that they have, which have happened to be good for the fleet in general and Roslin in particular. He looks in this episode like he's starting to disengage himself from Six, with his unwillingness to knowingly bring an end to humanity, but if his commitment to all humans everywhere can be undermined by reservations he already knows Laura has about him, then it was only a whim, not a principled set of actions. Any potential altruism of his motivations and actions is belied when he sends Six the nuke at the end of the episode. There's something deeply, deeply broken in Gaius that he can only be thoughtful or helpful or even kind when he's dealing with someone in desperate straits.
I hate to say this because I like her and I feel for everything she's been through in the last couple of episodes, but this is only a few shades off from Sharon's thinking and behavior. As Adama reminds us, we shouldn't mistake self-preservation for commitment, and Sharon's actions since she's been captured have always been a mixture of both. She tells Adama she doesn't think the humans deserve to survive - understandable given what she's been through, but hardly confidence-inspiring. She lumps all humans except for Helo together, then expects to be treated as the exceptional Cylon. (She isn't S1 Galactica Boomer, who had a claim to that presumption given her relationships with the crew, but still didn't expect or even particularly seem to want it.) It isn't entirely the same story, of course; Sharon's victimization is very real while Baltar's is entirely imagined, and he's working from a position of great power and influence. He's what they're afraid she is. But they're both refusing to look at it from someone else's perspective.
I really like the hard numbers lurking in the background of the show. Here the one that stands out is 189 days ago - it really hasn't been all that long since the attack. Seeing the number of survivors fall just a little after Cain's death is a nasty but necessary reminder of the inevitable tragedy of the last episode.
Black Market
This show is great with domestic issues like criminality. It's not just about war. The enemy is within. And...Richard Hatch guest starring! Yes! Nice little drop with the cigars, too - Fisk had his limits, but he wasn't adverse to bribery and was trading on the black market himself. It's a whole cops have the best pot situation. Until he dies. Not really sure why the don feels the need to show his own face at every single crime scene when he clearly has willing henchmen, though. Maybe he walks around touching everything and licking the doorknobs, just in case he isn't identified visually?
Fortunately, Lee Adama is on the case to MAKE THE INVESTIGATION ALL ABOUT HIM YET AGAIN. Lee. Oh my GOD. Is every murder that may or may not have happened about YOU? WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? JESSICA FLETCHER? He's not real subtle about it, either, tipping Gaius off about his suspicions instead of watching him and enlisting his help if possible. The approach of Tigh isn't much better, though his familiarity with and close proximity to Tigh makes it somewhat easier. But he is in paaaaaaaaaiiiiiin, you can tell because he forgot to shave today. Bill is a little bit responsible for this, having given Lee complete discretion without assigning him a partner, but ultimately it's Lee's investigation and his mistake.
The recklessness of the investigation doesn't compare to the Starbuck-worthy decision to go it alone into the bar. He's clearly more ashamed of his attachment to Chevon and Paia than he lets on to them, since there's nobody on Galactica he brings onto Prometheus for fear of being caught out. I don't actually think Kara would give him a hard time about it, but he's too uncomfortable with her sexual side to have her come into contact with his. To his credit, he doesn't take his hang-ups about sex out on Chevon until he gets all .. "Captain Save-A-Ho" seems a little on the nose, so we'll go with paternalistic .. on her at the end. It's not like Chevon and Paia didn't need saving - they deserve the protection of the law - it's that he singles them out from all the other trafficking victims, and then expects Chevon to come with him. She deserves protection so she can have her autonomy, not so Lee can live out his fantasy.
I'm pretty indifferent to the flashbacks. It makes sense for him to feel regretful about the fight, especially in light of his own death wish (he's alive because he fell out with her), and to be thinking about it in the aftermath of his close call, but it comes out of nowhere. Not sure if their fight was about the theoretical idea of a kid (Lee doesn't seem like the carriage before marriage type, and he's never mentioned a fiancee) or, as the focus on his hand at her stomach suggests, an actual pregnancy, particularly following the abortion drama of Epiphanies.
But it's clearly not just Lee's feelings about paying someone for sex. WHY is it always that men in fiction visit sex workers JUST TO FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL during their DARKEST HURRRRRRS. There's certainly nothing morally wrong with selling sex; in theory there's nothing wrong with buying sex; there's absolutely nothing wrong with finding sex comforting during a difficult time; but the near-universal narrative use of sex workers as symbols of A MAN'S FALL FROM GRACE grates. It wouldn't, if it wasn't all the time, but the implication is that sex workers themselves are symbols of desperation, crutches to be left behind once the Man Wounds have healed.
The picture of sex work in the fleet gets darker throughout the episode, and on a little more reflection, I don't think it was thought through - it might work in the episode, though I'm not sold on that either way, but the implications for world-building were definitely not considered. I mean, "working girls"? Funny how in this gender-egalitarian world the people with only sex to sell are all women, and the only people with buying power we've seen are men. Zarek tells us it's legal, but also tries to shame Lee about his patronage of Chevon. At the end, Chevon's revealed to be in the grips of the same pimp as her young child. If decriminalization was the key, she wouldn't need to be associating with the underworld types. You get the idea that Chevon's something of an independent contractor, who's dependent on a few high-profile visitors to keep herself as far off Prometheus as possible.
It's one or the other. Either this is a gender-egalitarian society with less sex shame, which leads to greater safety for sex workers, or it is a society that considers women the sex class and reviles sex workers accordingly. This, though. This is obscured loathing and fear of the feminine under a veneer of having female officers and calling them "sir." This is pointed to by the fact that the underworld boss, his immediate hit men, the people we see in the bar on Prometheus who are not sex workers are all men; as, less menacingly, were both of Laura's doctors and of course President Adar. It's a concerted top-down effort to enforce something approaching equality, not an organic part of society. Which is fine to show, as long as it's acknowledged. (Also, you'd think that if this is a world where same-sex relationships are accepted - as is implied in Caprica - you'd think there'd be some mention of male sex workers at some point in the episode. Unless Lee is a raging homophobe who wouldn't help them, in which case, suck it, Lee.)
You know something's going on with Paia when she freaks out seeing Lee, who she knows and is kind to her, but the reveal at the end is brutal. Lee misses it because he's sorry about being yanked out of his fantasy (he actually is quite good with kids, a non-traumatized little girl would probably be happy to see him); Chevon's subsumed everything under her happy girlfriend face. As heartbreaking - and sadly realistic - as it is, though, it serves to make the don a cardboard cutout baddie. Would Lee still have the same reaction if it were adult women being abused and exploited? (I get that not all sex workers are victims, but these women are clearly in an abusive pimp situation.) Did it need to be so visceral and personal for him to give a crap about the people he's sworn to protect being hurt?
Throughout the episode people keep accusing Laura of not being pragmatic about the black market, but of course she is. She recognizes the inevitability of some illegal trade, she just also knows that it needs to be minimized. It is pragmatic to let a few cigars be sold under the table; it isn't pragmatic for the mafia to have a monopoly on medication. There's a difference between having a black market and letting the black market control necessary supplies.
Really not wild about Lee mansplaining to the president as he withholds information from her. She has to know the extent of the criminal threat. Yes, her primary concern is economic, but if she knew the extent of the issue - then again, she may have guessed - she could be persuaded and give the issue adequate resources and attention. Right now he's the one who knows what to be looking for, and he can't do it on his own. Keeping it from her is an abuse of his discretion.
The black market guy is the snake eating its tail - antibiotics wouldn't be on such a tight ration if they didn't have a chokehold. (Nice subtle metaphor with the garroting, btw.) He tries to equivocate trade in antibiotics with the sale and rape of children, and that won't stand. Lee isn't even necessarily wrong to shoot him, but he doesn't fully think through the fact that he just created a power vacuum for Zarek to fill. Lee a few weeks ago wouldn't have been able to go through with the execution, but he's still engaging in the same abstract philosophical decision-making patterns rather than thinking practically about the situation at hand. Does he even think to see the kids let out before he leaves the bar?
The use of Zarek here is, as ever, great. He's the lurking stand-in for the dangers which exist within any human society - the politician, the self-styled martyr, the writer, the man of influence, wealth, and hypnotic charm even over those who have most reason to be suspicious of him. On a plot level, he's smarter, with more responsibilities and less hubris than the last don, but he's clearly been dealing with them directly on Prometheus instead of relying on Fisk. It'd be a neat tie-in if he'd actually stashed Laura and Lee there for a time, though I don't remember if that's textual or wank. Well, not wanked. Massaged.
Ultimately, it's not the worst episode for the show; obviously it can't always be the Laura Roslin And Her Officer-and-Gentleman Escort Hour. It's high time for Lee's dark night of the soul. But that's the thing - Lee lets his dark night of the soul subsume everything around him with his angst. It's time for him to grow up a little and realize that you can't bend the world to righteousness with force of will, and he does, but he instead thinks he can bend the world solely by philosophically complying with a few of its demands.
His harm reductionist attitude towards the black market isn't necessarily wrong; in fact, I think it is far more ethical than unrealistic attempts at full prohibition. But accepting some pragmatism makes it even more incumbent on him to think through the consequences of his actions. Lying by omission to Laura about the level of crime on Prometheus is an act of selfishness. He's not equipped to run his own Special Victims Unit, and he's so preoccupied with What A Burden it is for him that he doesn't think about how if he can't do it on his own, more kids get raped. It's encapsulated in the moment where he expects Chevon to leave the bar with him - I saved you, you're the one I like, let's go - and she calls him on not thinking about her reality. His morals are generally sound, and his compassion for the oppressed and victimized is admirable, but it's still possessive and egocentric. He's grasped that it's not enough to think what's right. He's just not equipped to follow through with what's right if it means recognizing he's not superman.
Other Thoughts
- The Bechdeliness of this show is just warming my cold, black little heart.
- The "48 hours earlier" framework is getting a little overused, no?
- The difference between Epiphanies as finished and as first conceived is. Wow. Though it's mostly far too heavy-handed, I would have liked to see the scenes with the crew talking about Roslin. Their thoughts about her are meaningful as well, and it'd be nice to have some reminder of that.
- Yes, I did spend the weekend hiding in my room mainlining Xanax and skipping parties! However could you tell?