Caprica thoughts, part 2
I’m a little less excited about the second half of the season, but still, THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD.
I love the Graystone marriage. They’re so clearly flawed people who love each other, trying to make it work. It’s a relationship, not a romance. Amanda makes a bit more sense for a few stretches of the second half of the show, but she’s still intensely, inscrutably mercurial. I have a lot of issues with the handwave that actually, she’s just the crazy lady in the futuristic living room, she spent time in a MENTAL INSTITUTION and therefore should be expected to make THE WORST POSSIBLE DECISIONS ALWAYS. (And seriously, “the really good drugs”? What psych meds are so much fun, seriously? Talk about your harmful social myths.)
I loved the Graystone reconciliation. Zoe had normal teen issues with her parents, possibly exacerbated by she and her father’s shared genius, but there was a lot of love there, too. And so for her to trust them to build her body - actually asking to be born to her parents, which none of us do - that shows a huge step up. But it’s also mutually beneficial to Zoe and Daniel - for all their zeal, they never do anything entirely unselfishly.
Daniel’s attempt to be a magnificent bastard and play the Ha’la’tha against itself is so engaging. He’s in the same place as Tamara in a lot of ways, oddly enough. The worst has happened to him, and so there’s nothing he can imagine losing as he sets out to gain. But of course, getting his company back was never going to be enough, he was going to any lengths to reconstruct the life destroyed by the bombing, and it was always going to drive him off the deep end.
I found that I was interested in the Adamas as long as they weren’t treated reverentially by the narrative, but it went entirely too far into glorification and melodrama and I fell out with that whole storyline. It starts out as a painfully accurate presentation of how ethnic groups respond to being transplanted. Joseph assimilates as best he can; Sam and Ruth react by clinging to their culture. When they’re low-level, realistically people trying to make it, that’s compelling, but when they get yanked up to being high-level, it stops being about them and starts being about their status.
I like them much better when it shows that Tauron macho bullshit is nothing but macho bullshit, rather than expecting me to be impressed with swagger. (And it is specifically macho bullshit - we see Tamara accept Zoe even with her completely legitimate grudge in the same episode as we see Vergis destroy himself over nothing.) Women and organized crime could have been so interesting if the show had more time. Ruth the retired assassin was absolutely fabulous, and there was something delightfully subversive about having the leadership of the sausagefest Ha’la’tha be taken by the guataru’s daughter. And whatever did happen to Tamara, teen crime lady of New Cap City?
No, their backstory destroys it all, which is a shame, because I really liked the concept behind the Tauron conflict. Having the kids run would have been traumatic enough, making Joseph the one who pulled the trigger doesn’t make sense, and frankly, a father who would ask a kid to do that isn’t worth much. As it were, it feels like the show thinks someone has to have not just violence but ACTUAL KILLING in their past in order to be a character we could respect and care about, and I think that’s crap. It was much more interesting to see Joseph as someone who was trying to avoid those power structures.
Anyway, because I need to mourn this missed opportunity and in any event cannot help myself: if you were to look at/listen to/observe the mannerisms of Daniel and Joseph without other context, there is no way you would get to Joseph as Lee Adama’s relative. Stoltz has Bamber’s same fair skin and unruly hair, the high cheekbones and straight nose, right down to his light voice and fidgety hands. Daniel lives in his head; he’s a ruthless, ambitious bastard who softens out those edges because he thinks that’s what non-tough-guys do; he trusts no one but gives the benefit of the doubt all too easily; he sees the moral gray areas where others presume right and wrong, but once he talks himself into believing something, he runs it all the way down, come hell or high water. Joseph happens to be a lawyer and happens to whine a lot, but it’s Daniel who has many of Lee’s most interesting character traits. Their lives, talents, and skills take them down such different paths (though they both end in passive destruction, ouch) - I love stories that examine the road not taken.
I would love to have seen a story where either Daniel and Amanda have another kid, or they have a young nephew, and he was Lee’s biological father. Or even - THOUGHT - that they built another model, and Lee was really the first hybrid. I don't know if I'd want that last one to be canon, I think he has to be human in the way Baltar did, but OTOH, CRACKTASTIC. (That’d be funny, if Daniel the Seven was Lee’s father instead of Kara’s, like everyone thought.) And that would have been awesome on so many levels. Even throwing a little doubt on Lee’s bio-paternity would have walked back so much that was wrong with the main series; I can’t think of a reason to pass up on the golden opportunity presented by the resemblance, except the implicit insult to Bill Adama’s sperm. BILL ADAMA: RUINING EVERYTHING SINCE BEFORE HIS OWN CONCEPTION.
Every scene on Gemenon is fabulous. Lacy’s simultaneous commitment to the STO and abhorrence of its gratuitous violence makes for wonderful internal conflict. Odin is great. In way over his head, and having learned the hard way that nobody’s looking out for him but him, and yet still with unselfish, humanist impulses. And oh, man, what was up with the GDD/STO guy, how did he get where he was?
Clarice’s philosophy is fascinating. Religion without faith. I really love the way Clarice retroactively complicates the Baltar story. Baltar’s self-styled Specialness was pretty much validated by S4 of BSG, but Clarice before him was remarkably similar, and was what she was without belief in or aid of the supernatural. I was quite floored in a good way when Zoe articulated her criticism of Clarice’s theology. That people turn it too easily into an excuse to treat life cavalierly, that people can be selfish enough to treat personal absolution as making something right. It’s quite a bleak idea of humanity she has there, that the fear of death is the only thing keeping people in check, I don’t think that’s better than the fundie idea that the fear of God is the only thing keeping people in check. But it’s a bold comment about some of the implications of mainstream modern religions, and I was surprised to hear it.
It does tick back up from “good” to “awesome” for me in the last couple of episodes. I really admire when a show goes with it and embraces the crack, even if it seems to have been going over budget on special effects for no reason other than spite. (Not to pretend that I don’t support spite as a motivator generally, because we all know me better than that.) ACTUAL WINGED DRAGONS, ZOE, YOU LOLARIOUS BRAT. And DANIEL GRAYSTONE, CRIME-FIGHTER. I love it. I don’t mind the whiplash of the end, because it was so clearly wrapping things up, and if it had been picked up again- yeah, actually, I can see how Clarice would end up as a cult leader, and of course Lacy took over the compound, why would she not? It’s wildly OTT, but in a totally plausible way. And that's where the show as a whole fits into the BSG universe for me, in the end - so fabulously fucking bizarre, it just might work.
I love the Graystone marriage. They’re so clearly flawed people who love each other, trying to make it work. It’s a relationship, not a romance. Amanda makes a bit more sense for a few stretches of the second half of the show, but she’s still intensely, inscrutably mercurial. I have a lot of issues with the handwave that actually, she’s just the crazy lady in the futuristic living room, she spent time in a MENTAL INSTITUTION and therefore should be expected to make THE WORST POSSIBLE DECISIONS ALWAYS. (And seriously, “the really good drugs”? What psych meds are so much fun, seriously? Talk about your harmful social myths.)
I loved the Graystone reconciliation. Zoe had normal teen issues with her parents, possibly exacerbated by she and her father’s shared genius, but there was a lot of love there, too. And so for her to trust them to build her body - actually asking to be born to her parents, which none of us do - that shows a huge step up. But it’s also mutually beneficial to Zoe and Daniel - for all their zeal, they never do anything entirely unselfishly.
Daniel’s attempt to be a magnificent bastard and play the Ha’la’tha against itself is so engaging. He’s in the same place as Tamara in a lot of ways, oddly enough. The worst has happened to him, and so there’s nothing he can imagine losing as he sets out to gain. But of course, getting his company back was never going to be enough, he was going to any lengths to reconstruct the life destroyed by the bombing, and it was always going to drive him off the deep end.
I found that I was interested in the Adamas as long as they weren’t treated reverentially by the narrative, but it went entirely too far into glorification and melodrama and I fell out with that whole storyline. It starts out as a painfully accurate presentation of how ethnic groups respond to being transplanted. Joseph assimilates as best he can; Sam and Ruth react by clinging to their culture. When they’re low-level, realistically people trying to make it, that’s compelling, but when they get yanked up to being high-level, it stops being about them and starts being about their status.
I like them much better when it shows that Tauron macho bullshit is nothing but macho bullshit, rather than expecting me to be impressed with swagger. (And it is specifically macho bullshit - we see Tamara accept Zoe even with her completely legitimate grudge in the same episode as we see Vergis destroy himself over nothing.) Women and organized crime could have been so interesting if the show had more time. Ruth the retired assassin was absolutely fabulous, and there was something delightfully subversive about having the leadership of the sausagefest Ha’la’tha be taken by the guataru’s daughter. And whatever did happen to Tamara, teen crime lady of New Cap City?
No, their backstory destroys it all, which is a shame, because I really liked the concept behind the Tauron conflict. Having the kids run would have been traumatic enough, making Joseph the one who pulled the trigger doesn’t make sense, and frankly, a father who would ask a kid to do that isn’t worth much. As it were, it feels like the show thinks someone has to have not just violence but ACTUAL KILLING in their past in order to be a character we could respect and care about, and I think that’s crap. It was much more interesting to see Joseph as someone who was trying to avoid those power structures.
Anyway, because I need to mourn this missed opportunity and in any event cannot help myself: if you were to look at/listen to/observe the mannerisms of Daniel and Joseph without other context, there is no way you would get to Joseph as Lee Adama’s relative. Stoltz has Bamber’s same fair skin and unruly hair, the high cheekbones and straight nose, right down to his light voice and fidgety hands. Daniel lives in his head; he’s a ruthless, ambitious bastard who softens out those edges because he thinks that’s what non-tough-guys do; he trusts no one but gives the benefit of the doubt all too easily; he sees the moral gray areas where others presume right and wrong, but once he talks himself into believing something, he runs it all the way down, come hell or high water. Joseph happens to be a lawyer and happens to whine a lot, but it’s Daniel who has many of Lee’s most interesting character traits. Their lives, talents, and skills take them down such different paths (though they both end in passive destruction, ouch) - I love stories that examine the road not taken.
I would love to have seen a story where either Daniel and Amanda have another kid, or they have a young nephew, and he was Lee’s biological father. Or even - THOUGHT - that they built another model, and Lee was really the first hybrid. I don't know if I'd want that last one to be canon, I think he has to be human in the way Baltar did, but OTOH, CRACKTASTIC. (That’d be funny, if Daniel the Seven was Lee’s father instead of Kara’s, like everyone thought.) And that would have been awesome on so many levels. Even throwing a little doubt on Lee’s bio-paternity would have walked back so much that was wrong with the main series; I can’t think of a reason to pass up on the golden opportunity presented by the resemblance, except the implicit insult to Bill Adama’s sperm. BILL ADAMA: RUINING EVERYTHING SINCE BEFORE HIS OWN CONCEPTION.
Every scene on Gemenon is fabulous. Lacy’s simultaneous commitment to the STO and abhorrence of its gratuitous violence makes for wonderful internal conflict. Odin is great. In way over his head, and having learned the hard way that nobody’s looking out for him but him, and yet still with unselfish, humanist impulses. And oh, man, what was up with the GDD/STO guy, how did he get where he was?
Clarice’s philosophy is fascinating. Religion without faith. I really love the way Clarice retroactively complicates the Baltar story. Baltar’s self-styled Specialness was pretty much validated by S4 of BSG, but Clarice before him was remarkably similar, and was what she was without belief in or aid of the supernatural. I was quite floored in a good way when Zoe articulated her criticism of Clarice’s theology. That people turn it too easily into an excuse to treat life cavalierly, that people can be selfish enough to treat personal absolution as making something right. It’s quite a bleak idea of humanity she has there, that the fear of death is the only thing keeping people in check, I don’t think that’s better than the fundie idea that the fear of God is the only thing keeping people in check. But it’s a bold comment about some of the implications of mainstream modern religions, and I was surprised to hear it.
It does tick back up from “good” to “awesome” for me in the last couple of episodes. I really admire when a show goes with it and embraces the crack, even if it seems to have been going over budget on special effects for no reason other than spite. (Not to pretend that I don’t support spite as a motivator generally, because we all know me better than that.) ACTUAL WINGED DRAGONS, ZOE, YOU LOLARIOUS BRAT. And DANIEL GRAYSTONE, CRIME-FIGHTER. I love it. I don’t mind the whiplash of the end, because it was so clearly wrapping things up, and if it had been picked up again- yeah, actually, I can see how Clarice would end up as a cult leader, and of course Lacy took over the compound, why would she not? It’s wildly OTT, but in a totally plausible way. And that's where the show as a whole fits into the BSG universe for me, in the end - so fabulously fucking bizarre, it just might work.