BSG 3.03 Exodus, part I

[selenak]

Okay, this one reminds me that two-parters are fruuuuuustrating to watch in real time. Though the good kind of torture. Also, I give in. It's just one more scene, but it was the drop too many - I hereby admit myself to be a Roslin/Zarek 'shipper. I even have a plot bunny, may both the Cylon God and the Lords of Kobol help me. Because I really don't

Comments

[viggorlijah]

I am amazed that at the end of the episode I would turn to my husband and weepily say "I love you like Ellen loves Tigh" and *mean* it. Their love is so deep and real and it's incredibly tragic to watch.

There's also a KC spec that she's a Kara clone (initials and resemblence) and a bit more far-fetched but not that much - that she's Lee's child with his ex-gf. I thought that was piffle but then realised that the cylons have been watching certain people - Baltar, Adama - with his murky past - and Kara Thrace - for time before the war. So for them to track down an Adama grandchild as an ace-in-the-hole is not that unlikely and could play out. I'm hoping she's a clone though.

Cavil rocks. You can believe that he's truly upset at his treatment.

[selenak]

I must get myself an Ellen and Tigh icon. Probably in time for next week's episode when dreadful things, no matter whether she dies or not, are bound to happen between them.

KC as clone would also work, true!

Cavil: is the Cylon Donald Rumsfeld quite. Though I figure one reason there aren't any Leoben models at the meetings is that a Leoben would take a look at him and say "three? Pfff!"

On a more serious note, I'm also reminded of whoever wrote the Cylons are a childlike and teenager like respectively (i.e. Six and the Sharons are teens, the others were prepubescent children who now arrive at puberty as well), emotionally. Which makes sense if you consider that despite their looks, none of them can have lived out a single human lifetime. Given the forty years between wars and that developing the humlons must have taken years of engineering, I wouldn't be suprised if the oldest Cylons were all of ten or twelve of something, with most we see only five or two years old...

[skywaterblue]

Right. They're children with nuclear weapons, which to me? That makes them far more frightening than when they were just evil robots.

[selenak]

Absolutely. They're sentient, they're intelligent, and they do have emotions, but they have nothing like the human experience to handle them, and far more power than even mature humans should have.

[skywaterblue]

I like that Ron Moore keeps making the Baltar and Six relationship /real/, despite the critics on the internet who seem to hate Baltar and Six. (How this is possible, I don't know, since I clearly find them the most interesting characters on the show and always have.)

[selenak]

I think the trouble (or intriguing thing, depending on one's pov) people have with both of them is that they don't fit easily into archetypes people are familiar with. Six is neither the cackling villainess nor the "good bad" girl (Sharon in the first season came close to that one, though she left that behind later, starting with "Home" in sII, I'd say), i.e. the Bond girl who first does the villain's bidding and then switches sides because she's had sex with the hero. Baltar isn't a cackling villain nor is he a good bad boy, i.e. someone cool and hip who just fights on the wrong side. They really don't have precedents, and so we're challenged to constantly reevaluate them.

[skywaterblue]

True. I see too many people trying to shove them into the 'villian' box. And it may turn out that they are the villians, but I think Ron Moore would disagree with that -- especially now -- and so would I. And I think that's part of the frustration of the audience that doesn't like them.

Someday I want to really do an essay about the villians in DS9 and then the 'villians' in BSG. Except that the baddies on DS9 were always bad -- except for Damar. And the 'baddies' on BSG don't seem bad so much as they seem like they can't live to the standards of what narrative demands of a 'good' character.

[abigail_n]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I disliked Baltar and Six for most of the first season precisely because they were both such one-note characters - Baltar the craven comic relief, Six the evil sexpot. I like them very much now that they've both gained an extra dimension or two, and if there's one thing that pleases me about the beginning of S3 it's that Ellen Tigh seems to be going through the same process.

[counteragent]

Quote: *wonders off to ponder the fact that the people she felt most for during this episodes were Ellen Tigh, Baltar and Six, with some delighted squee about Zarek and Roslin*

I know! Roslin aside, those have been my least favorite characters. But now I think they are the most dynamic and interesting characters the show has to offer. What the fr*k?

[abigail_n]

Your observations about Kaycee (is that really the correct spelling? Sigh) make a great deal of sense, but I'm by no means convinced that the writers are interested in making story sense. Story sense demanded that a main character become pregnant after Roslin's abortion ban, but the purpose of that plotline was to Make a Point. I don't think it's entirely unlikely that the Kaycee sub-plot is primarily intended to mess with Kara's head, and that petty concerns such as the importance of hybrids in other sub-plots aren't being allowed to interfere with that goal. We'll have to wait and see.

Anyway, the revelation I'm eager for is whether Kara's feelings for Kaycee are genuine, or whether they're a ruse to trick Leoben, or the result of derangement.

[selenak]

Spelling: I have no idea, honestly. I've seen all variations - K.C., Casey, Kaycee, Kaysee - I suppose one would have to check the credits, and I haven't, yet.

Re: Kara's feelings, my guess is that while she knows why Leoben brought the kid in to begin with, and is playing for time in order to trick him effectively, she also can't help but have genuine feelings for the kid. Which I can buy. She was barely sane BEFORE Leoben brought in the child, mother-daughter with the mother hurting the daughter is Kara's big red button which has been established since s1, and it is a child, which most people would feel protective for. So yes, she still intends to trick Leoben, but also yes, her feelings are genuine. That's my theory.

[thewhiteowl]

I've only seen caps of this episode--season, actually (no broadband, sigh), but Kacey looks older than she would be if she was Kara's child, conceived post-the Farm. I mean, she looks about two years old, she has so much hair. She'd have to be a few months younger at least than Hera/Isis if she was Kara's.