Final Cut
Wow! Two reviews in two days! Very nearly unprecedented, but I'm on spring break so I thought I'd go wild. The bad news is that this recap is for Final Cut, an episode I would never choose to watch if given a choice (unless it was a choice between Final Cut and Black Market or The Woman King). The good news is that season 2.0 ends with two really good, solid episodes and I'm one step closer to those episodes.
So, hop the cut for my thoughts. You'd really be doing me a solid.
1) Final Cut begins with 47,853 survivors, two less than in the start of Home Part II. The deaths are easy to account for in this case: Mayer, Zarek's right hand man down on Kobol was shot by Sharon and the bald guy, Zarek's goon down on Kobol, was shot in the head by Lee.
2) Why, hello Lucy Lawless. It's so nice to see you. Actually, BSG is the only thing I've seen Lawless in (aside from the small stint she had in the ninth season of The X-Files where she played a cylon-esque super soldier, coincidentally enough), but I think she does a good job here.
3) So, Tigh's been getting death threats. The first one we see is a cryptic poem written on a mirror in the Tighs' room. I don't know if it's blood or what, but the whole thing felt very Buffy the Vampire Slayer to me. But not in a good way (because I totally lurve Buffy the Vampire Slayer and usually love that which reminds me of it). Cryptic poetry? Blood? Mirrors? Death? That kind of stuff doesn't feel hokey when it's done on Buffy because Buffy is kind of kitschy and it's a fantasy and it's pulp. It doesn't work on a show like BSG because it feels completely and totally hokey. I was less afraid for Tigh than I was that the ship was dealing some psychotic vampire. Angelus, perhaps?
4) This is the "Apollo's towel" episode. Let me state, for the record, that I a rather queer lady. I have lusty feelings for Helo and Anders. I'd get down with the Chief (before New Caprica). But Lee and his towel do nothing for me. I don't know if it's because I think he's such an emo tool or what (and speaking of his tool . . .), but he just doesn't appeal to me, even when he's pretty much completely naked.
5) Tool in point (paraphrased): "I'm the captain of the air group. That's pronounced CAG. You need to leave. And that's pronounced ASAP." I can't even go any further with that. I just want to hit him.
6) There's something kind of meta about Final Cut since it's an episode with a film crew filming a mini-documentary on a television show that it shot as a documentary.
7) Kat's a stim user. Surprised? No. I really go back and forth with Kat. I usually can't stand her but she has her moments, and I have to say I felt for her when she was talking to D'Anna about why she was using stims. These pilots have to be ready to put their life on the line every minute of everyday. It's kind of chilling when Racetrack tells D'Anna that they're taught, as pilots, to assume they're already dead when they go out on a combat run. The dehumanization (that Helo speaks of), the pressure, and the constant fear . . . I'd probably be taking something harder than stims.
8) Uh oh. Something's wrong with Sharon and her baby. Since this episode is pretty much a documentary in a documentary, we don't many details on what goes wrong and we don't get any details on how Doc Cottle manages to fix it, but obviously the whole incident is a plot point so that D'Anna can learn that Sharon is alive and, bonus, is still pregnant. What a boon!
9) But how does she get out of the fleet and back to the cylons?
10) I think D'Anna has a crush on Dee. I kind of do, too, so I don't blame her. She's often interviewing Dee and she's constantly asking Dee to translate military speak into Colonial speak and asking her about her feelings during the cylon interception. But Dee is really eloquent about her reasons for joining the military and her fears going forward. If you want to put a human face on the military, Dee is definitely the person to be that face.
11) I really hate Adama's "yes!" at the end of the fight, after Lee shoots down the cylon raider. When has he ever done that before ever? And, spoiler alert, I'm pretty sure he never does it again. It's a minor quibble, really, but it takes me out of the scene every time.
12) When Tigh goes back to his quarters and sees Ellen bound and gagged on the floor, he's not as surprised as you'd think, given the circumstances. I think we accidentally saw through a window into the Tighs' home life.
13) And speaking of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Palladino looks a lot like Nicholas Brendan. Which also takes me out of this very tense, important scene where he confronts Tigh. I think the scene is very representative of the kind of guy Tigh is. I think on many other shows, if the Tigh-character had been confronted in that way, he would have been sincere, mired in guilt, when asking Palladino to shoot him. This Tigh, though, while guilty, is too pragmatic for sentiment. And, unexpectedly, wouldn't change any of what he'd done, despite the deaths on board the Gideon. As he tells Palladino, "Gideon was an accident. This is a choice."
14) Wow. So . . . Another cylon revealed. D'Anna Biers, the woman who apparently has a serious amount of sway in the fleet. I mean, I imagine she's in a unique position. I don't know how prevalent televisions are in the fleet, but since people can actually her in their rooms, I'm sure there's more of a connection to her than say, Playa.
It's also really interesting that she chooses to cut the story in a way that is complimentary to the military. I think she's genuinely moved by what she sees in her time on the Galactica and I think the cylons, as a whole, are somewhat fascinated by human actions. After the Six sees the piece she says with wonderment, "They're so resilient." D'Anna could have really ripped the military to shreds, helping to fracture the fleet even further, but she holds back.
I love when the cylons are complex.
15) Line I really liked: "When are you going to realize we're all alone out here?" Ellen says it to Saul before he gets on the raptor of doom. I think it's a line that really sums up a lot of what BSG is about: Everyone keeps trying to live their life as they did before the attack, but they can't do that. They need to realize nothing is the same and while they are a fleet, inevitable, everyone is responsible for themselves.
And there you have it. A decent episode, for sure, but nothing spectacular. A little clunky in places, too, though it gets props for introducing a new and very interesting cylon model. For that, I'm going to give Final Cut 2.5 out of 5 airlocks.
So, hop the cut for my thoughts. You'd really be doing me a solid.
1) Final Cut begins with 47,853 survivors, two less than in the start of Home Part II. The deaths are easy to account for in this case: Mayer, Zarek's right hand man down on Kobol was shot by Sharon and the bald guy, Zarek's goon down on Kobol, was shot in the head by Lee.
2) Why, hello Lucy Lawless. It's so nice to see you. Actually, BSG is the only thing I've seen Lawless in (aside from the small stint she had in the ninth season of The X-Files where she played a cylon-esque super soldier, coincidentally enough), but I think she does a good job here.
3) So, Tigh's been getting death threats. The first one we see is a cryptic poem written on a mirror in the Tighs' room. I don't know if it's blood or what, but the whole thing felt very Buffy the Vampire Slayer to me. But not in a good way (because I totally lurve Buffy the Vampire Slayer and usually love that which reminds me of it). Cryptic poetry? Blood? Mirrors? Death? That kind of stuff doesn't feel hokey when it's done on Buffy because Buffy is kind of kitschy and it's a fantasy and it's pulp. It doesn't work on a show like BSG because it feels completely and totally hokey. I was less afraid for Tigh than I was that the ship was dealing some psychotic vampire. Angelus, perhaps?
4) This is the "Apollo's towel" episode. Let me state, for the record, that I a rather queer lady. I have lusty feelings for Helo and Anders. I'd get down with the Chief (before New Caprica). But Lee and his towel do nothing for me. I don't know if it's because I think he's such an emo tool or what (and speaking of his tool . . .), but he just doesn't appeal to me, even when he's pretty much completely naked.
5) Tool in point (paraphrased): "I'm the captain of the air group. That's pronounced CAG. You need to leave. And that's pronounced ASAP." I can't even go any further with that. I just want to hit him.
6) There's something kind of meta about Final Cut since it's an episode with a film crew filming a mini-documentary on a television show that it shot as a documentary.
7) Kat's a stim user. Surprised? No. I really go back and forth with Kat. I usually can't stand her but she has her moments, and I have to say I felt for her when she was talking to D'Anna about why she was using stims. These pilots have to be ready to put their life on the line every minute of everyday. It's kind of chilling when Racetrack tells D'Anna that they're taught, as pilots, to assume they're already dead when they go out on a combat run. The dehumanization (that Helo speaks of), the pressure, and the constant fear . . . I'd probably be taking something harder than stims.
8) Uh oh. Something's wrong with Sharon and her baby. Since this episode is pretty much a documentary in a documentary, we don't many details on what goes wrong and we don't get any details on how Doc Cottle manages to fix it, but obviously the whole incident is a plot point so that D'Anna can learn that Sharon is alive and, bonus, is still pregnant. What a boon!
9) But how does she get out of the fleet and back to the cylons?
10) I think D'Anna has a crush on Dee. I kind of do, too, so I don't blame her. She's often interviewing Dee and she's constantly asking Dee to translate military speak into Colonial speak and asking her about her feelings during the cylon interception. But Dee is really eloquent about her reasons for joining the military and her fears going forward. If you want to put a human face on the military, Dee is definitely the person to be that face.
11) I really hate Adama's "yes!" at the end of the fight, after Lee shoots down the cylon raider. When has he ever done that before ever? And, spoiler alert, I'm pretty sure he never does it again. It's a minor quibble, really, but it takes me out of the scene every time.
12) When Tigh goes back to his quarters and sees Ellen bound and gagged on the floor, he's not as surprised as you'd think, given the circumstances. I think we accidentally saw through a window into the Tighs' home life.
13) And speaking of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Palladino looks a lot like Nicholas Brendan. Which also takes me out of this very tense, important scene where he confronts Tigh. I think the scene is very representative of the kind of guy Tigh is. I think on many other shows, if the Tigh-character had been confronted in that way, he would have been sincere, mired in guilt, when asking Palladino to shoot him. This Tigh, though, while guilty, is too pragmatic for sentiment. And, unexpectedly, wouldn't change any of what he'd done, despite the deaths on board the Gideon. As he tells Palladino, "Gideon was an accident. This is a choice."
14) Wow. So . . . Another cylon revealed. D'Anna Biers, the woman who apparently has a serious amount of sway in the fleet. I mean, I imagine she's in a unique position. I don't know how prevalent televisions are in the fleet, but since people can actually her in their rooms, I'm sure there's more of a connection to her than say, Playa.
It's also really interesting that she chooses to cut the story in a way that is complimentary to the military. I think she's genuinely moved by what she sees in her time on the Galactica and I think the cylons, as a whole, are somewhat fascinated by human actions. After the Six sees the piece she says with wonderment, "They're so resilient." D'Anna could have really ripped the military to shreds, helping to fracture the fleet even further, but she holds back.
I love when the cylons are complex.
15) Line I really liked: "When are you going to realize we're all alone out here?" Ellen says it to Saul before he gets on the raptor of doom. I think it's a line that really sums up a lot of what BSG is about: Everyone keeps trying to live their life as they did before the attack, but they can't do that. They need to realize nothing is the same and while they are a fleet, inevitable, everyone is responsible for themselves.
And there you have it. A decent episode, for sure, but nothing spectacular. A little clunky in places, too, though it gets props for introducing a new and very interesting cylon model. For that, I'm going to give Final Cut 2.5 out of 5 airlocks.