the first reaction to truth
The Passage
Ugh, I like Kat, why did she get such a crap swan song? This episode does suck, right, it's not just that it came on the heels of Unfinished Business? I feel like her backstory came entirely out of nowhere, except perhaps the (fucked-up) suggestion that a person inclined towards some types of chemical addiction is also an identity-thieving drug-runner, just in time for her to be killed off. It's an attempt at manipulation but it's so sudden and dramatic it just doesn't work for me. I guess the closest storyline to this has been Billy's death, which I could at least deal with because I thought was very well played. Now we have no more Kat with not even a good episode to console us.
What do the Cylons do all day, besides striding around plotting destruction? That's a fair point. The other Cylons are getting suspicious of Three, interesting. "She's been doing things." I think we're supposed to see some parallels with Kat, with the secretiveness and the apparent self-destructiveness, but does it hold up? Three wants enlightenment. Kat wants to forget.
Gaius' curiosity is so interesting. He doesn't even seem to put his knowledge to use, usually, he's just been a scientist for so long that he needs to know. And Three is the perfect target for it, and in her own way an adventurer, downloading more and more often for the thrill and the knowledge it grants. And they're now forming an alliance behind Six's back, which is interesting.
This feels like a S1 episode, with a specific survival problem introduced in the very beginning of the episode and the team all gathering around to figure it out. A bad S1 episode. CAUSE STARBUCK PAIN is actually a pretty terrible episode that we have seen fourteen times before, BORED.
Starbuck accuses her of being a risk but really, there's no way of knowing any of them aren't risks. Not really sure how much of it is Starbuck's dislike of Kat and how much of it is the combination of hunger, radiation, and drugs, but it's clearly both. I just wanna hurt someone, and you deserve it. You're a liar. Kara does finally get a sister solidarity moment when she calls Kat's sleazy ex "Handso," and it's nice to see her get a chance to call out that specifically as she's getting her shit together.
Starbuck seems to always wear her uniform to the sick bay - it's her armor against the harsher parts of life. It's the thing she belongs to and her way of showing concern and respect. (It's not too jarring to see Bill in uniform, considering he would wear it to a Marley concert, but Kara, yes.) She can't bring herself to be gentle with Kat, but Kara's handing over the sleeping pills - with a euphemism, no less, "there's enough" - is a cold thing I'm not sure she could have done a couple of years ago. She faced some conditions she would never want to live under, and can put herself in Kat's position here. (Also, PEOPLE NEED THOSE SLEEPING PILLS. Just sayin'.)
It's pretty clear, though, that Kat was trying to kill herself regardless, since she goes out of her way to steal Helo's armband so she can go on the last mission. It's a fairly unsubtle early Starbuck-style stunt, except Kat has a little less to live for and is a little bit less lucky. Kind of not thrilled about how she worked her stuff with Lee out and now her dark mirror is dead, as if that's the thing that was keeping her on the same track Kat was. (Lee had a little bit of an opportunity to face some of the dominant traits of his S1 self during the fight with Helo in Unfinished Business, but it's not treated as a whole character episode the way this is.)
Of course, she doesn't have the options Three does, to destroy and rebuild herself slightly differently every time. We have to live with the things we've done. She can destroy, or she can rebuild,
Bill is awfully generous with the "like a daughter" stuff, isn't he? Starbuck, then Athena, now Kat. I mean, it's clearly meant kindly with Kat, but still. He's really good at making people feel special when he needs or wants to, I would absolutely believe him too, and yanking it away to hurt them if he needs or wants to. I mean. He should do it here. It isn't wrong. She shouldn't die alone or feeling unloved. But overall, it's a pattern.
The Eye of Jupiter
Jupiter aims his lightning bolts from the heavens, and when he opens his eyes he sees everything. Zarek's Zeus comparison maybe isn't so wrong after all. All kinds of truths come out in this episode - the triangle and the square; Tyrol's anger at the idea of faith; the Hera story. And Zeus takes aim.
Tyrol is such a lapsed Catholic. Such. And still. I feel something in here. Something true. That's the first time we've ever heard him talk about his family, though, outside of his mention to Cavil that his father was a priest. I do wonder what instinct (or force?) brought him to the temple. I can't even imagine the temple was anything other than CGI, but it's very very pretty.
Constant pattern of people perceiving Lee as messing with his position for his romantic feelings, and I don't know. Kara thinks he kept she and Anders apart; Dee thinks he's sending Kara on extra missions. He obviously isn't adverse to doing things he shouldn't. I'm thinking in particular of his finessing of the Pegasus report. Those things don't seem like things he would do for the reasons he's suspected of doing them. I think he told himself he sent Anders away from Kara was because he wasn't going to show her any favoritism, dammit, she didn't deserve it. And I don't know why he'd be sending Kara on extra missions to get in her pants, wouldn't he try to keep her around while the other pilots are gone instead of sending her into harm's way? But she's at the forefront of his mind and he's refusing to examine his actions from that angle.
"Like divorce" - he's pushing her again. Kara staying married isn't actually an impediment to his getting divorced from Dee, though. If the guilt is eating away at his marriage, it is over anyway. He wants not to be alone just a little more than he wants to be with Kara, though. He can't take the risk by himself. And I get why he doesn't want to go out on the limb for her, but the giant Kara-shaped issue in his marriage isn't all Kara's fault.
She, OTOH, has not just grown past the "gotta make a move" philosophy on New Caprica, partially because of the change in scenery - she can't pretend that her life is settled down when she's back in the cockpit - but also because she's afraid to make those decisions now. It seems right now like Anders is going to have to eventually realize that he's not going to get his "real marriage" with Kara and bail on her.
"Marriage is a sacrament." I've actually been interested in seeing if Kara's faith would resurface, since it seemed like she gave up just about everything but survival on New Caprica. It's like once the ideas of the Arrow of Athena and the map to Earth became real, the gods just became people who can let her down like everyone else. I mean, I don't think that's entirely her real reason - she can't put all of her eggs in one basket (I don't mean she shouldn't, I mean she's a person who can't) - but the fact that she reaches for that first and says it with such conviction, I can't help but suspect that it's very much a part of who she is.
This episode, FINALLY, gives some decent Gaius. It's been a while. He's both relieved and terrified to be back on Galactica - "I can't help feeling that I'm finally home." I don't think he's afraid he's a sleeper, I think he's afraid he's not. If he's programmed, what he did isn't his fault. But he doesn't know. "You want the Eye. The Cylons want the eye." No first person for Gaius. He has no idea where he fits in. Also, nice touch with Gaeta being in the room when they bring Baltar in; Baltar doesn't even spare him a glance. No wonder he got away with the spying.
Three likes controlling knowledge as much as Baltar does. Who even decides who needs to know? Who are they taking orders from? And when, and for what precipitating reason (not that there weren't many) did it cut Caprica Six out of the loop?
I can't help but love love love the compare/contrast between the Three/Gaius/Six entanglement and the Everyone On Galactica polygon. Six's line about having transcended separations and entanglements pounds home the disasters that are the marriages within the love square. But pretending that shifts in affections and alliances don't exist doesn't actually make them go away, and whether Three and Six (or as an outside possibility all three of them) are just machines or not, they have enough humanity in them to change and be manipulated and drawn in strange ways toward and away from one another. Three/Gaius/Six are honest with themselves and each other where K/L/S/D aren't, and the other way around.
I'm excited to see the return to the Hera thread. Hera is always Sharon's baby, though Boomer is the custodial parent instead of Athena. I actually didn't realize Adama didn't know about the baby? I was so sure he was in on it. I do feel for Athena and Helo here, but they never even get happy that the baby is alive, what the fuck is that mess, who skates right past MY KID IS ALIVE to YOU ARE A LYING LIAR. Actually, Bill might, which makes Helo throwing Zach in his face a little harsher than it already is.
"Are we prepared to sacrifice Lee?" (emphasis added). She seems to have accepted him as her surrogate child as well, she remembers everything, not just slights, and she can trust Lee where she can't trust Bill, though she's also of course playing on Adama's paternal affection to keep him from destroying the Eye unless it's absolutely necessary, and Bill is maybe a hair more rash than he would otherwise be because he's angry with her. Lee for his own part is both offeror and sacrifice here, forcing Anders to give Kara up for dead, and about to be nuked by his own father. Which, that's gotta sting.
Rapture
Well, that's a promising title. Rapture.
Interesting, if not particularly flattering, episode for Dee, this is the first time since Billy was shot that we've seen her less than completely composed, and the only time we've seen any selfishness or pettiness from her. There's a tic there where Lee refers to Dee to someone else as Lieutenant Dualla? I thought Dualla was her first name. She's kind of an asshole about "you want me to RESCUE Captain THRACE?!?!" You are in the business of rescuing people, there, sweetheart. She clearly has some Other Woman issues - she snaps at Kara while they're under fire, but walks into Lee's arms when they get back onto the ship. She does seem competent enough during the mission, but I doubt she's had a whole lot of field time, she's rattled.
Deanna has to turn back? They are the raptors? I guess the "we" thing makes sense now. Fantastic turnaround that Three is the one that they're talking about boxing, when she was the one threatening it to Boomer and Caprica. Also I can't help but notice they use her human cover name to speak to her. She's more like Sharon and Cavil than Six in this way (can't see any of them calling Six Shelley or Gina, but I don't even know what number Cavil is).
I've been a lot more appreciative than most through this show and Dollhouse, and I still didn't know Penikett had it in him for that first scene. Oh ouch. Sharon is going to get her baby and live. Helo just. He doesn't quite believe she's going to download, or that she'll be quite the same if she does, and he definitely doesn't think he's ever going to see her again. If Sharon is a person in the way he thinks she is, then shooting her in the stomach is it, and it shows. In a way he's right too, Athena's new Sharon body doesn't have whatever traces that carrying her pregnancy left her with, though it doesn't seem to have changed her character. Good show, man. (Maybe next time she gets a fella, she could not get shot and die in his arms? Just a thought.)
Laura. Laura! SHE IS SO RIGHT. "If it involved your family only, I'd say it was brave." As it is, fuck you and your pain and your terrible plan. We don't have the time. Bill is grudgingly, hostilely with Laura on this one - Sharon "may not have a choice" about betrayal. After the showdown in the first part, Laura ultimately takes back some of the high ground as she walks out of the room, reminding Bill that he put his faith in Athena just as surely as Helo did. He's just not the one who acted on it, this time.
The Cylons will all take things a step farther than they have already, regardless of Cavil's insistence that they can just float along through the status quo until they chance upon something better. The rebirths aren't anything special any more. It's just Caprica awaiting Athena's rebirth, then just Cavil sitting beside Three. Three and Baltar take active steps toward their chosen destiny, whatever the hell chose them. They're not quite treating Baltar like the guestage they and he want to think he is any more. Not only is he in desperate need of a haircut, but they've also stripped him of the one thing he could always pride himself on - Caprica and the Sharons are about to let Hera die for lack of a human doctor, when they have one on board.
"The nova is the Eye of Jupiter." Which, that I saw coming, but Tyrol figuring it out is something I completely didn't expect. Starting to really like him again. Bad Catholic solidarity, I guess. But how great is it to see him get to be the one to capture Gaius? He hasn't had a chance to get his moment of glory yet - he liked beating up on Bill even less than Bill liked getting beaten up, and that's not much of a victory, to get an old man down in a fake fight. This, though, this is a map to Earth and serving some justice.
Neither did I expect Kara to have had visions of the Eye since childhood. I'm going to have to reserve judgment on the idea of Kara as mystical vessel. I like it because she's a person whose religious convictions are sympathetic to a lot of people. She finds comfort in religion without being a literalist, so her story isn't Gaius' Road to Damascus story, nor is it sainthood, it's just a new facet of Kara. I'm not so stoked that the show continues to play the ideas of prophecy and predestination straight because LAURA. *wibbles* ANYONE BUT MY GIRL, SHOW. ANYONE.
Here's hoping neither Baltar nor Three are boxed permanently. I'll be interested to see how they end up treating Gaius - I think he gets a trial at some point? Some public spectacle, I think, Roslin would insist on that. I do hope, though, that he's tried for the right things, if that makes sense. He should face punishment for what he did on Caprica, helping Six destroy humanity, but as to whether punishing him for New Caprica makes sense, that's a little murkier. I'd be unhappy with the idea that surrendering is treachery, for instance; that ends in foolish and counterproductive fighting to the death. Whatever does or doesn't happen with the mass death warrant, it was literally signed with a gun to his head, and I'm not wild about the idea of punishing people for an ultimately irrelevant action taken under that kind of duress(what, Baltar getting shot for refusing to sign was going to stop the executions? K), but the near-victims are entitled to see it differently, especially since the only witnesses to that effect are Cylons and unlikely to be credible.
Man, Three boxed? Bummer. I hope there are other Threes floating around un-boxed. I liked her. Or I guess she could be defrosted if they decide they need to know who the other Cylons are? Also, I do wonder who decided to get rid of her - "we" being the Cavils, or "we" being all of the Cylons?
a non-episode-specific digression on that fierce fabulous bitch laura roslin
Can we talk for a second about my thing for Laura? More than usual, I mean. My Roslin love kind of freaks me out. Not because she is not amazing, BECAUSE WE DO NOT TRUCK WITH THAT NONSENSE HERE, but because I can say with all honesty that everything she's done so far, I think I would do too in her position. With the exception of the abortion law, and even then not because it morally and philosophically appalled me - which it did, don't get me wrong - but because her reasoning was completely unsound. I don't kid myself that I'm as graceful, as smart, or as good on my feet as she is, but I completely get why she does the things she does.
I understand her guiding principle, I understand why she believes in it and how hard she fights for it. I understand why she throws herself into the deep end at work when she's dying. I think she has solid, logical, and from her perspective ethical reasons for having Leoben airlocked, for refusing to negotiate with Sesha, for taking Hera, for ordering the bio-weapon released. I get that when there's nothing she can do she just says "screw you assholes" and rolls a doobie. I understand why she tells Baltar to bite her when he asks her to condemn the suicide bombings. She thinks so too. For all the things she does that are bone-chilling, or that have catastrophic effects, she never once apologizes, and in fact she openly turns down forgiveness when it's offered. She did what she had to do, and to say she's sorry would be a lie. She'd do it all over again, and there's nobody who doesn't know that. She doesn't have a job that I utterly can't see myself doing, like the pilots, or a station in life that would make me utterly miserable, like Ellen. She wields power that I understand. I get it. I get it all. I'm not so sure about who's right and who's wrong, or who's making a strategically good or bad choice. But I know what choices I would make.
But that's not necessarily all coming from a good place. That ability to compartmentalize so utterly seems like something she's picked up in the last couple of years - while she's been a politician for years, these aren't things that the idealistic, situation-oriented, largely pacifist Secretary of Education in the Adar cabinet could have done. She's the only one with her eyes and mind fully open to the sucking abyss of space, and she stares it down, keeps her head, and says, what else you got. She doesn't care if it changes her, no matter how infinite and airless and cold that change may be. She has a job to do. These are the stakes. It's worth her life. It's worth her soul. She decided those things a long time ago and hasn't looked back. That means she will do anything. It's one thing to enjoy a character that will do anything. It's quite another to sympathize with and admire one.
A character who owns this trait - not just has it but harnesses it - is almost always a villain, or at the very best ambiguous, especially if she's a woman. And I love me a deadly fabulous bitch, I do. Cain. Adelle DeWitt. Lilah Morgan. But a character who puts it toward heroism? Who actually means it when she says for the greater good, rather than using the phrase as an abstract justification? Fascinating. The only character I can think of right now who even comes close is Hermione Granger, whom I also adore don't get me wrong, but she's a Good Fabulous Bitch in training at best. A Fabulous Bitch needs more mileage than anyone could have by eighteen. Anyway the point is that Laura Roslin is a fierce fabulous frakking bitch, but only because she has to be. She has had fabulous bitchdom thrust upon her, and she has risen to the occasion without for a moment losing sight of the bigger picture. The stakes are great. The fierceness is greater. I LOVE HER.
other thoughts
- eurgh, here's hoping EJO didn't try to have the cast starved for The Method.
- Wonder if there's any significance to switching from the Greek names to the Roman? Signifier of the humans moving close to the Cylon (monotheist) religion? Not that Roman polytheism was more Christian than Greek paganism, but the Empire itself swung from one to the other.
- I'm interested in this concept of strength through motherhood for Athena. Not so much fulfillment by motherhood as we see so often, or use of existing strength in service of motherhood (a la Molly Weasley), but some actual greater warrior strength than she would otherwise have. I don't have any definitive up or down opinion on it yet, but it's interesting.
- I'll hand it to the Cavil asshole, "we come in peace" is pretty funny.
- Since I'm on the Potter kick tonight for some reason, Laura and Minerva McGonagall would just get on swimmingly, wouldn't they? Maybe she is my missing Good Fabulous Bitch. hm.
- Bamber can't quite control his accent when he yells.
- Started looking at some of my first few entries of the watch (lol i couldn't sleep last night, I know you all are shocked) and holy shit I am even more impressed with this show. There were tiny little character details that showed up in the very beginning that are now full-blown storylines. Tigh's mess showed up in one of his very first lines in 33.
- Less excitingly, I have noticed words/phrases which I overuse: dude, ultimately, also, for real, GOD, and WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, LEE ADAMA. Actually, I use that last one just enough. The other ones...working on it.
- This is a thing I just want, and it has to be out there but I'm afraid to look because spoilers. I miss Ellen, you guys. I want Ellen/sweet young thing (Lee, Sam, Kara, Helo OMG hilarious pairing, whoever); here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. I know I'm not the first to think of it, so. Want it. Need it. Link me and let me know if it's spoilery; if it is I'll come back to it. She's basically Celia from Weeds without a kid to be mean to, so all the fun without the horror. RIP ELLEN, UNLESS YOU ARE A CYLON, IN WHICH Y SO SLOW COME BACK.