Kobol's Last Gleaming Part II
We've finally done it, my little cylonites. We've made it to the end of season 1! Seriously, you guys, recapping these thirteen episodes feels like it has taken forever when, in reality, it only took a few weeks. But I do feel pretty cool (in a nerdy way) for having accomplished what I've accomplished so far.
And to be reminded of what a cool episode Kobol's Last Gleaming Part II, too is like ice cream with my cake. Or, perhaps more appropriately, Nutella with my onion rings.
Precede to the cut, if you please.
1) KLGP2 takes place one day after KLGP1 which makes sense but it also brings home the fact that all of this stuff is going down over the course of only two days. And that this season has taken place over the course of only 51 days.
2) Let's start with the stuff going down on Caprica between Helo and Sharon. Biggest revelation: Sharon's pregnant. Holy frak, right? Cylons can get pregnant now?!
Now, suddenly, the Helo-on-Caprica storyline pays off. It made little sense for the cylons to keep him alive, especially when they were obviously tracking him. Helo's not nearly as stealth as he thinks he is. It makes sense that they'd send an Eight to mess with his head a bit and it makes sense that they wanted him to fall in love with his Caprica!Sharon.
But now this brings up other issues. Obviously, as stated incredulously in an above paragraph, cylons can get pregnant. WIth humans. Now, I'm pretty sure that I can't get pregnant by a chimpanzee so how can Helo actually get Sharon pregnant? And what's the big idea about love? Does mean that true love can get cylons pregnant? Because . . . no offense, Ron Moore, but I'm going to need more than that.
3) But as I was watching the scene where Sharon tells Helo she's pregnant and kind of puts him in his place, the difference between Sharon and Boomer was really striking. It's like . . . Boomer's a girl and Sharon's a woman. There's something about the way Grace Park plays Boomer that's really wide-eyed and innocent. Seriously, Boomer almost always has a wide-eyed stare, like she's ready to be scared shitless by something jumping out from around the corner. She seems very childlike at times. In contrast, Sharon is very take charge, very proactive. Even when she's scared that she and Helo are going to be found by the cylons (after she turns), she's quick to action. No wide-eyed stares from Sharon.
But this contrast drives home a point about the cylons. Sharon has Boomer's memories and, essentially, we are the sum total of our memories. So, theoretically, Sharon and Boomer are one and the same. But Sharon leads a life diverging away from Boomer's life so they aren't one and the same. They're very different. Because the cylons themselves, even within the same models, lead varying lives. They're not just robotic replicants.
It's an incomplete thought, I know, but I find the differences between Boomer and Sharon very interesting.
4) I also love that as Boomer discovers her cylon-ness, Sharon discovers her humanity.
5) Okay, so let's move, for now, back to the fleet. Adama's getting really pissy with Laura and has decided to stage a military coup. Shyeah, Bill. Like it could ever be that easy.
Laura, you are such a sly dog! Talk about manipulating the situation for her own favor. Laura is in complete control of Adama's coup. Seriously, you guys. First, knowing that Adama is smart enough to realize Starbuck didn't just leave on her own and knowing he'd contact her, she frakking goes ahead and assembles the press in her office so that they can bear witness to anything that goes down on the phone. While Adama is powerful and has all the guns, she knows that he knows it won't be helpful to piss off the press.
Then, once she surrenders, she's still in charge! She tells Tigh, "Let's go" and isn't even lead out in handcuffs. There's something her that screams, "I'm going to let you think you're in charge but we both know you really aren't. And that I am. Because I'm awesome."
6) But poor Lee. (Never thought I'd say that.) It isn't until Lee pulls his gun on Tigh (rightly so, if you ask me) that Laura surrenders in order to avoid bloodshed. So now he's stuck going to the brig, too, because he pulled his gun a few seconds too early. But this is the Lee we've come to expect. He's a bit of a boy scout, right? And while I do think Laura is right, Lee's motivation seems to be more about upholding the law and democracy and blah blah blah. Lee's very by-the-book, very honorable (or so he thinks), so it's no wonder he'd flout orders to be the hero.
7) Meanwhile, down on Kobol . . . I really like the stuff with Crashdown. His complete naivety, his inability to be a true leader made two pings go off in my head. The first: How much must the traditional military hierarchy stuck when someone like Crashdown is the highest ranking officer in the time of crisis? These people are at the end of the world and they still insist on conforming to this outdated form of authority. I mean, I think they should be commanded by Adama, but he's proven himself. Crashdown hasn't and the Chief kind of should have said, "Frak this. I'm in charge." The second ping was this: Crashdown's inexperience and inability to really command the situation brings homes the fact that these kids have never been in combat before. They have absolutely no idea what they're doing. They wouldn't even know how to fight a "normal" war, let alone a war like this one. And these are the people charged with protecting the human race. But, really, who is going to protect them?
8) Back to Caprica . . . Is it just me, or does the Arrow of Apollo look like something I could have made in an elementary school art class?
9) It's the little details that count: Starbuck takes an anti-radiation shot. It's a minor detail but an important one and BSG does really well with that kind of thing.
10) How hardcore is that fight between Six and Starbuck?
11) I really love Starbuck's reaction to finding out that Sharon is a cylon. It's obvious that Boomer and Kara are good friends and after everything that's happened, with the attack, and confessing to Adama about Zak, and crashing down on that moon, rehabbing her knee, sleeping with Baltar, stealing a raider and jumping back home . . . The whole Sharon-is-a-cylon thing is kind of like the stick that breaks the camel's back. And the intensity of her reaction is pretty effective . . . to me, at least.
12) So, um, Boomer knows she's a cylon now. How frakking trippy if you're Boomer, right? To see a bunch of yourselves come out and talk to you in a really creepy Stepford Wives kind of way.
13) But why are all the Sharons all naked? And so creepy?
14) When I first saw this episode I jumped as high as Adama does when Boomer shoots him. I knew there'd be fallout from her discovery of her true self but I wasn't expecting that. Such a great, unexpected moment.
15) Oh, and before I forget, I'd like to give a welcome to Racetrack, raptor pilot/ECO extraordinaire! Sucks to be her, though. I'm convinced that Adama sends Boomer on the basestar mission because he realizes Boomer is suicidal and will do whatever needs to be done, even if it gets her killed, to complete the mission. Poor Racetrack's just along for the ride. I really feel for her when she's alone in the raptor and sees Boomer just kind of walking around. Very nerve racking.
16) According to head!Six, Baltar is the guardian of God's new breed of children. I missed this detail the first time around and realize now how helpful it would have been to have noticed it originally.
17) I'm going to take this opportunity to once again praise Bear McCreary. In the last episode we got Passacaglia and in this episode we get The Shape of Things to Come which I have been listening to lately on repeat. I can't even imagine the Opera House stuff without this particular score. The wonderful picture contrast of the grimey and bloody Baltar being lead through this saturated green shrub environment of Kobol towards the ruins by a very pristine looking head!Six, and then having it morph into this beautifully antiquated opera house to the swelling music . . . BSG would be a great show even without the music but the music almost allows it transcend normal greatness.
If you don't have the soundtrack, do yourself a favor and find The Shape of Things to Come on youtube and if it doesn't give you goosebumps I'll eat my hat. Or your hat, as I don't have a hat.
18) I'm going to end with Bill, because he's the image we go out on. I wrote in an earlier review that Bill has an almost incomparable ability to bestow forgiveness. I mean, Starbuck admitted to him that her negligence helped kill his son and he forgave her. One can presume Tigh's given him quite a bit over the years to forgive. Bill's obviously a soft touch . . . for everyone except Lee.
Lee can do almost no right in his father's eyes. Now, I don't like Lee, but I think it was brave of him to follow his instincts and stand up to his father's order. It wasn't personal. He wasn't aligning with Laura. He was aligning with the notion of justice and democracy. But when it's between Bill and Lee, Bill can't not take it personally.
The look he gives Lee (or the look he doesn't give Lee because he can't even look at him) when Lee is escorted to the CIC just before Boomer and Racetrack enter is one of profound disappointment and he goes ahead and rubs that anger in Lee's face by praising Boomer and Racetrack for carrying out their mission despite their reservations.
But what Bill doesn't (yet?) understand is that he's raised Lee to be just like him. That's probably why they can't get along.
So there you have it. We end season one with a pretty amazing cliffhanger, some intriguing questions, and few answers. I can't wait for season two and that's why I'm going to go ahead and give Kobol's Last Gleaming Part II 5 out of 5 airlocks.
And to be reminded of what a cool episode Kobol's Last Gleaming Part II, too is like ice cream with my cake. Or, perhaps more appropriately, Nutella with my onion rings.
Precede to the cut, if you please.
1) KLGP2 takes place one day after KLGP1 which makes sense but it also brings home the fact that all of this stuff is going down over the course of only two days. And that this season has taken place over the course of only 51 days.
2) Let's start with the stuff going down on Caprica between Helo and Sharon. Biggest revelation: Sharon's pregnant. Holy frak, right? Cylons can get pregnant now?!
Now, suddenly, the Helo-on-Caprica storyline pays off. It made little sense for the cylons to keep him alive, especially when they were obviously tracking him. Helo's not nearly as stealth as he thinks he is. It makes sense that they'd send an Eight to mess with his head a bit and it makes sense that they wanted him to fall in love with his Caprica!Sharon.
But now this brings up other issues. Obviously, as stated incredulously in an above paragraph, cylons can get pregnant. WIth humans. Now, I'm pretty sure that I can't get pregnant by a chimpanzee so how can Helo actually get Sharon pregnant? And what's the big idea about love? Does mean that true love can get cylons pregnant? Because . . . no offense, Ron Moore, but I'm going to need more than that.
3) But as I was watching the scene where Sharon tells Helo she's pregnant and kind of puts him in his place, the difference between Sharon and Boomer was really striking. It's like . . . Boomer's a girl and Sharon's a woman. There's something about the way Grace Park plays Boomer that's really wide-eyed and innocent. Seriously, Boomer almost always has a wide-eyed stare, like she's ready to be scared shitless by something jumping out from around the corner. She seems very childlike at times. In contrast, Sharon is very take charge, very proactive. Even when she's scared that she and Helo are going to be found by the cylons (after she turns), she's quick to action. No wide-eyed stares from Sharon.
But this contrast drives home a point about the cylons. Sharon has Boomer's memories and, essentially, we are the sum total of our memories. So, theoretically, Sharon and Boomer are one and the same. But Sharon leads a life diverging away from Boomer's life so they aren't one and the same. They're very different. Because the cylons themselves, even within the same models, lead varying lives. They're not just robotic replicants.
It's an incomplete thought, I know, but I find the differences between Boomer and Sharon very interesting.
4) I also love that as Boomer discovers her cylon-ness, Sharon discovers her humanity.
5) Okay, so let's move, for now, back to the fleet. Adama's getting really pissy with Laura and has decided to stage a military coup. Shyeah, Bill. Like it could ever be that easy.
Laura, you are such a sly dog! Talk about manipulating the situation for her own favor. Laura is in complete control of Adama's coup. Seriously, you guys. First, knowing that Adama is smart enough to realize Starbuck didn't just leave on her own and knowing he'd contact her, she frakking goes ahead and assembles the press in her office so that they can bear witness to anything that goes down on the phone. While Adama is powerful and has all the guns, she knows that he knows it won't be helpful to piss off the press.
Then, once she surrenders, she's still in charge! She tells Tigh, "Let's go" and isn't even lead out in handcuffs. There's something her that screams, "I'm going to let you think you're in charge but we both know you really aren't. And that I am. Because I'm awesome."
6) But poor Lee. (Never thought I'd say that.) It isn't until Lee pulls his gun on Tigh (rightly so, if you ask me) that Laura surrenders in order to avoid bloodshed. So now he's stuck going to the brig, too, because he pulled his gun a few seconds too early. But this is the Lee we've come to expect. He's a bit of a boy scout, right? And while I do think Laura is right, Lee's motivation seems to be more about upholding the law and democracy and blah blah blah. Lee's very by-the-book, very honorable (or so he thinks), so it's no wonder he'd flout orders to be the hero.
7) Meanwhile, down on Kobol . . . I really like the stuff with Crashdown. His complete naivety, his inability to be a true leader made two pings go off in my head. The first: How much must the traditional military hierarchy stuck when someone like Crashdown is the highest ranking officer in the time of crisis? These people are at the end of the world and they still insist on conforming to this outdated form of authority. I mean, I think they should be commanded by Adama, but he's proven himself. Crashdown hasn't and the Chief kind of should have said, "Frak this. I'm in charge." The second ping was this: Crashdown's inexperience and inability to really command the situation brings homes the fact that these kids have never been in combat before. They have absolutely no idea what they're doing. They wouldn't even know how to fight a "normal" war, let alone a war like this one. And these are the people charged with protecting the human race. But, really, who is going to protect them?
8) Back to Caprica . . . Is it just me, or does the Arrow of Apollo look like something I could have made in an elementary school art class?
9) It's the little details that count: Starbuck takes an anti-radiation shot. It's a minor detail but an important one and BSG does really well with that kind of thing.
10) How hardcore is that fight between Six and Starbuck?
11) I really love Starbuck's reaction to finding out that Sharon is a cylon. It's obvious that Boomer and Kara are good friends and after everything that's happened, with the attack, and confessing to Adama about Zak, and crashing down on that moon, rehabbing her knee, sleeping with Baltar, stealing a raider and jumping back home . . . The whole Sharon-is-a-cylon thing is kind of like the stick that breaks the camel's back. And the intensity of her reaction is pretty effective . . . to me, at least.
12) So, um, Boomer knows she's a cylon now. How frakking trippy if you're Boomer, right? To see a bunch of yourselves come out and talk to you in a really creepy Stepford Wives kind of way.
13) But why are all the Sharons all naked? And so creepy?
14) When I first saw this episode I jumped as high as Adama does when Boomer shoots him. I knew there'd be fallout from her discovery of her true self but I wasn't expecting that. Such a great, unexpected moment.
15) Oh, and before I forget, I'd like to give a welcome to Racetrack, raptor pilot/ECO extraordinaire! Sucks to be her, though. I'm convinced that Adama sends Boomer on the basestar mission because he realizes Boomer is suicidal and will do whatever needs to be done, even if it gets her killed, to complete the mission. Poor Racetrack's just along for the ride. I really feel for her when she's alone in the raptor and sees Boomer just kind of walking around. Very nerve racking.
16) According to head!Six, Baltar is the guardian of God's new breed of children. I missed this detail the first time around and realize now how helpful it would have been to have noticed it originally.
17) I'm going to take this opportunity to once again praise Bear McCreary. In the last episode we got Passacaglia and in this episode we get The Shape of Things to Come which I have been listening to lately on repeat. I can't even imagine the Opera House stuff without this particular score. The wonderful picture contrast of the grimey and bloody Baltar being lead through this saturated green shrub environment of Kobol towards the ruins by a very pristine looking head!Six, and then having it morph into this beautifully antiquated opera house to the swelling music . . . BSG would be a great show even without the music but the music almost allows it transcend normal greatness.
If you don't have the soundtrack, do yourself a favor and find The Shape of Things to Come on youtube and if it doesn't give you goosebumps I'll eat my hat. Or your hat, as I don't have a hat.
18) I'm going to end with Bill, because he's the image we go out on. I wrote in an earlier review that Bill has an almost incomparable ability to bestow forgiveness. I mean, Starbuck admitted to him that her negligence helped kill his son and he forgave her. One can presume Tigh's given him quite a bit over the years to forgive. Bill's obviously a soft touch . . . for everyone except Lee.
Lee can do almost no right in his father's eyes. Now, I don't like Lee, but I think it was brave of him to follow his instincts and stand up to his father's order. It wasn't personal. He wasn't aligning with Laura. He was aligning with the notion of justice and democracy. But when it's between Bill and Lee, Bill can't not take it personally.
The look he gives Lee (or the look he doesn't give Lee because he can't even look at him) when Lee is escorted to the CIC just before Boomer and Racetrack enter is one of profound disappointment and he goes ahead and rubs that anger in Lee's face by praising Boomer and Racetrack for carrying out their mission despite their reservations.
But what Bill doesn't (yet?) understand is that he's raised Lee to be just like him. That's probably why they can't get along.
So there you have it. We end season one with a pretty amazing cliffhanger, some intriguing questions, and few answers. I can't wait for season two and that's why I'm going to go ahead and give Kobol's Last Gleaming Part II 5 out of 5 airlocks.