BSG 4.17 - "Someone to Watch over Me" - redux
Whew. I've typed up a few thoughts on "Someone to Watch over Me", though I didn't quite get as much down as I'd wanted; meta seems much harder these days, or else I'm just lazy! And as I said last night, I'm still *loving* the season and having a hard time with all the negativity (even if I'll admit that it's quite warranted), so I'd really appreciate keeping things somewhat positive. Thanks!
I'll start off by paraphrasing something I said last night to sarmoti. We only have two more regular episodes plus a two-hour finale, yet this week we had a slowly-paced episode in which very little seemed to happen. I wonder, though, just how much has to happen. My unspoiled spec is that the show will end with the Galactica being destroyed and nearly everyone dying, perhaps followed by some type of reset to tie in "all this has happened before". Where do things stand now?
What's left? Obviously, we still need answers to many questions, and the endgame will probably be quite complicated. But to me it seems like BSG is getting very close to where they need to be at the end, and they have four 42-minute episodes in which to accomplish that. Most of the remaining issues involve internal things such as characters and relationships (and yes, I'm also grumbly where it relates to K/L.) Maybe this was frustrating because after the adrenaline of the mutiny arc, the pacing has slowed down - and that pace is unnerving when we're so close to the end? Or maybe because the show has always been so complicated, yet the endgame above seems almost too simple? I don't know. I just can't quite get behind the "We don't have enough time for a boring, character-focused episode!" arguments, when in my opinion they've set things up in an intricate (and perhaps too subtle and languid) fashion.
And I've seen some legitimate complaints that we didn't learn anything new about the characters. Kara's storyline, in particular, was just a retread of where she has been for far too long. While I can definitely see the frustration there, I didn't mind because although I do want answers, they're not a priority for me. I just want to spend as much time as possible with Kara before it's over, and this was such a lovely look inside her head right now.
The Thrace Family
Sergeant-Major Socrata married a musician and had a child. That doesn't seem in-character for the hard, bitter woman we met in "Maelstrom", but her forcing him to get a job does fit. Plus, their piano lessons give an ugly symbolic twist to Socrata breaking her child's fingers. I'd really love to know more about what the family's life was like before then (maybe even more than I want to hear about Kara, Lee, and Zak pre-Mini). The tricky part of all this is that Kara is an unreliable narrator. Even without the issue of that story being filtered through her twenty-years-ago memories, she would have a bias against the mother who made her childhood hellish. Casting her father as the one who left complicates matters, but his explanation gives him a romantic air as the artist who couldn't give up his heart (even as he left her with this woman.) It's all quite complicated! Obviously, what we heard onscreen wasn't the whole truth, but I loved the shading of how Kara perceives her family - and those scenes were played so beautifully by both actors.
(A bit of trivia: apparently "Dreilide" is a German amalgam of "third eyelid", which extends to "third eye", i.e. clairvoyance. I doubt this was intended, though, as her father was given that name way back in the character bios from the season one press kits.)
If Dreilide is Daniel, then I suspect he left because he was boxed. Kara never heard from him again, and we have no evidence that a pianist named Dreilide Thrace existed after that - the recording could have been made earlier. This would have happened approximately twenty years before the Mini. Since we don't know exactly when Cavil unboxed and reintroduced the Five into the Colonies, it's possible that Daniel/Dreilide was boxed shortly before this happened.
That said, I'm not entirely sold on Dreilide as Daniel, but I can't quite pinpoint why. So, I'll make a list of pros and cons.
Dreilide is Daniel:
Dreilide is something else altogether:
Right now I'm leaning toward the Daniel explanation. I do wish he hadn't been a head character, though. Since only Cavil knew about Daniel until "No Exit", it's plausible that he could've been undetected in the Fleet for so long (though wouldn't Cavil have killed Daniel on New Caprica?) My rewrite would've had him physically present in Joe's Bar. When they begin to play "Watchtower", Ellen and the others still come over, shocked to hear the music. Then Ellen just looks at him and whispers, "Daniel." Voila! The plot is advanced! Ah, well. ;)
A shell of a girl
As I've said many, many times, I am very easy to please when it comes to Kara Thrace. Namely, I just want more screentime, however I might get it! In that respect, this episode was so, so lovely. Even without the resurrection, she is barely there now. She doesn't know what the hell she is, and at this point she doesn't really care. She just wants it all to be over; however, the last time she was suicidal, she came back as something worse. It's never going to end. And since this is Kara Thrace, she almost gets off on the way it's eating her alive - or dead, as the case may be. I love the way she recites the morning speech in that monotone, the same way she has done for weeks (another short time jump.) Imagine getting up every morning, touching the extra set of dog tags, and not having a frakking clue what you are anymore. She has gone from lashing out at Gaeta in bitterness to shooting people with glee to just existing.
I love the scene with Helo and Hera. While I've seen some people call her rude for ditching the rest of his gift, I didn't interpret it that way at all. Watch the way her face changes as she picks up the recording. Everything else just fades away. It's a great parallel to their scene in her apartment on Caprica. She doesn't give a damn about all the other "stuff"; the two things she values are her father's music and his coat. Helo knows her well enough to understand how deeply this touches her.
From that point on, she's so open and unguarded. Her father's music is like a touchstone. When she's in the bar, her ribbing of Slick is snarky but without that bitter Starbuck edge. I don't think that Starbuck is entirely a façade to hide the big ol' softy underneath; it's a key part of who she is. But it's just so interesting to see her when she's a bit drunk and nostalgic and lets her guard down. And wow, that look on her face when she finally puts her hands on the keys ....
Random thoughts:
-- Sam as the new ship Hybrid? Sure looks that way. Such a sad fate for him as a person, but also somehow glorious.
-- I love seeing the minutiae of the daily lives on the ship, especially in that teaser. The sense of resignation is just so sad.
-- elzed pointed out that sex-in-the-head is now canon! Whee! A thousand fanfics have been proven right. Also: side breast! ;)
-- Yes, I know I haven't said anything about Boomer and Tyrol, mostly because I just really, really don't care about him for irrational reasons I can't even really explain.
-- People seem to think that Roslin is dead. Nah. She'll get a huge, heartbreaking death scene (as much as I love her, death is inevitable.) Her opened eyes as she collapsed is strange, but I think that she just went into some type of fugue state, akin to when she had the opera house visions. Looks like we'll be seeing that theater again very soon.
-- While I've never been as attached to the elders (Roslin and Adama) as much as the young 'uns, it's so interesting to see how much they've been sidelined lately. That makes sense for Roslin, given her cancer, but Adama barely does anything anymore. I think the writers are going for a "next generation" thing, with the old guard being replaced in both Command and the Cylon alliance, but it's still rather disconcerting.
-- How does the fleet manage to have so much alcohol? Eh, I'll handwave it. We do know that they have apples (Baltar ate one in that mess hall scene with Tory in 4.02), and I can buy that only the current food supply was contaminated in "The Passage". Growing new crops from scarce seedlings would take a while, but by now they might have a minimum of supplemental food sources.
-- The issue of nobody recognizing Boomer is also problematic, but I'm willing to handwave that as well. Hera is sweet and obviously ahead of the learning curve in some ways, but she's also creepy a three-year-old kid with a very, very frakked-up history. Yeah, she immediately recognized Sharon way back on the basestar, but a lot has happened since then. And while Helo definitely should've known he wasn't frakking his wife, he's also a guy who was getting laid. Okay, that's a flimsy excuse, but I'm happy to shrug it off because I'm just not as attached to their storyline as I want to be. Ah, well!
-- Also, why are many fans so hung up on how Hera MUST be the Only Cylon-Human Hybrid OMGs!!!? I've been scrolling through some boards and blogs, and a few people are downright offended that Kara might be a hybrid because it means Hera is no longer "special". As I said above, everyone else on the show thinks she's the only one, so she's still very valuable. Kara wasn't running around the opera house or in Six's cradle. Hera's conception, birth, and upbringing are very important to the Cylons. While the humans mostly treat her like an ordinary kid, they're highly invested in her safety. And even if she's not "special" or "unique" anymore, what's the big deal? Yeah, it goes against what we've seen thus far, but things change! If they're both Human-Cylon hybrids, then Kara and Hera still serve very different purposes on the show. (Besides, ain't nobody gonna know about Kara anytime soon. Even if she somehow finds out in private, no way in hell is she going to parade around the ship while yelling, "Guess what? I'm half-toaster!" And once everyone else finds out, Kara will most likely want nothing to do with any special destinies, given how much they've frakked up her life thus far.)
-- Bear McCreary's blog posts can get a bit tedious (and self-congratulatory, IMO), but his three-parter for this episode is really interesting, both for the creative process and the fun tidbits from the actors. He also has some neat quotes from Katee and the others.
-- Yes, Kara's "Wank as little as possible. Conserve your O2" made me giggle. Finally, someone acknowledges that onanism must be rampant on that ship!
-- I mentioned at the start of the post that I've been disheartened by all the negativity lately, so I was really relieved to see the glowing responses to Sepinwall's post-ep. (Yeah, I link to him way too much, but he's awesome.) I like reading his blog and the responses to get a feel for what people outside of fandom -- with all our biases and interpretations -- think of an episode.
-- Just noticed that I have the exact same shirt that Tory's wearing. Even the same shade of purple, except mine is much larger and has slightly different sleeves. Wow. I bought it at Old Navy last week. I guess the Gap empire has spread into outer spaaaaaaaace.
-- I missed Lee. Yay for him getting the new Quorum up and running, though it's going to be pretty chaotic if every single ship has a representative.
-- I also miss Pilots. I'm not angry that they've been sidelined lately, and I'm holding out hope. It's difficult, though!
-- I read the casting sides for Slick nearly a year ago; that's the only spoiler I had for this episode. Quite an interesting read. If you'd like to see them, here's a download link: sendspace.com/file/23gic5
-- Since my last few post-ep fics have been trumped by other excellent writers before I got around to finishing them (I'm way too slow), can I call dibs on a K/L fic featuring Kara's various projections? ;)
Whew. I'm too out-of-practice when it comes to post-ep meta. Perhaps I'll add more to this later. In the meantime, I'm going to curl up on the sofa and rewatch a third time!
I'll start off by paraphrasing something I said last night to sarmoti. We only have two more regular episodes plus a two-hour finale, yet this week we had a slowly-paced episode in which very little seemed to happen. I wonder, though, just how much has to happen. My unspoiled spec is that the show will end with the Galactica being destroyed and nearly everyone dying, perhaps followed by some type of reset to tie in "all this has happened before". Where do things stand now?
- Boomer is presumably returning to Cavil with Hera in a box. He now knows the location of the Fleet, which can no longer use Hera as a bargaining chip.
- The Final Five are reunited, with substantial knowledge of their origins thanks to the infodump in "No Exit".
- The humans and the 268s' basestar are increasingly integrated, and we have no indication that those Cylon models plan to betray the alliance. When Sonia!Six makes a potentially controversial request as part of the new Quorum (!), the President and Admiral don't even blink.
- We appear to be very close to answers about the Opera House, the head characters, and the mystical questions surrounding the show's narrative arc.
- The Galactica is falling to pieces, despite the attempts to fix it with the Cylon goo. They're actively searching for yet another habitable planet. Morale is low. Most of the military is too despondent to fight. The civilians are on the brink of rebellion.
What's left? Obviously, we still need answers to many questions, and the endgame will probably be quite complicated. But to me it seems like BSG is getting very close to where they need to be at the end, and they have four 42-minute episodes in which to accomplish that. Most of the remaining issues involve internal things such as characters and relationships (and yes, I'm also grumbly where it relates to K/L.) Maybe this was frustrating because after the adrenaline of the mutiny arc, the pacing has slowed down - and that pace is unnerving when we're so close to the end? Or maybe because the show has always been so complicated, yet the endgame above seems almost too simple? I don't know. I just can't quite get behind the "We don't have enough time for a boring, character-focused episode!" arguments, when in my opinion they've set things up in an intricate (and perhaps too subtle and languid) fashion.
And I've seen some legitimate complaints that we didn't learn anything new about the characters. Kara's storyline, in particular, was just a retread of where she has been for far too long. While I can definitely see the frustration there, I didn't mind because although I do want answers, they're not a priority for me. I just want to spend as much time as possible with Kara before it's over, and this was such a lovely look inside her head right now.
The Thrace Family
Sergeant-Major Socrata married a musician and had a child. That doesn't seem in-character for the hard, bitter woman we met in "Maelstrom", but her forcing him to get a job does fit. Plus, their piano lessons give an ugly symbolic twist to Socrata breaking her child's fingers. I'd really love to know more about what the family's life was like before then (maybe even more than I want to hear about Kara, Lee, and Zak pre-Mini). The tricky part of all this is that Kara is an unreliable narrator. Even without the issue of that story being filtered through her twenty-years-ago memories, she would have a bias against the mother who made her childhood hellish. Casting her father as the one who left complicates matters, but his explanation gives him a romantic air as the artist who couldn't give up his heart (even as he left her with this woman.) It's all quite complicated! Obviously, what we heard onscreen wasn't the whole truth, but I loved the shading of how Kara perceives her family - and those scenes were played so beautifully by both actors.
(A bit of trivia: apparently "Dreilide" is a German amalgam of "third eyelid", which extends to "third eye", i.e. clairvoyance. I doubt this was intended, though, as her father was given that name way back in the character bios from the season one press kits.)
If Dreilide is Daniel, then I suspect he left because he was boxed. Kara never heard from him again, and we have no evidence that a pianist named Dreilide Thrace existed after that - the recording could have been made earlier. This would have happened approximately twenty years before the Mini. Since we don't know exactly when Cavil unboxed and reintroduced the Five into the Colonies, it's possible that Daniel/Dreilide was boxed shortly before this happened.
That said, I'm not entirely sold on Dreilide as Daniel, but I can't quite pinpoint why. So, I'll make a list of pros and cons.
Dreilide is Daniel:
- The writers specifically mentioned Daniel in "No Exit", even though there was no real reason to bring in yet another Cylon. They also said that he was an artist and had been boxed because of Cavil's jealousy.
- They went to a lot of trouble to cast the actor for a one-off role in the last season. Yes, they needed someone who could play piano, but still. I have a feeling we'll see him again.
- Socrata insisted that Kara was "special". How would she know about her husband's origins? Though this could support either side of the argument, assuming that Dreilide wasn't just an ordinary human.
- He knew the "Watchtower" riff.
- "Dreilide Thrace Live at the Helios Opera House". Gee, where have we heard about theaters before?
Dreilide is something else altogether:
- Hera's status as the first hybrid is a cornerstone of the series. (But she's just the only one they know about, which still gives her immense value right now.)
- The Head Characters aren't necessarily Cylons. We've been led to believe that they're something more spiritual, perhaps even the Lords of Kobol.
- His mystical influence could mean he had a hand in Kara's resurrection. RDM says the Final Five's virtual beings are called "The Messengers", which dovetails with Kara's arc.
- As an answer, it's a bit too obvious.
Right now I'm leaning toward the Daniel explanation. I do wish he hadn't been a head character, though. Since only Cavil knew about Daniel until "No Exit", it's plausible that he could've been undetected in the Fleet for so long (though wouldn't Cavil have killed Daniel on New Caprica?) My rewrite would've had him physically present in Joe's Bar. When they begin to play "Watchtower", Ellen and the others still come over, shocked to hear the music. Then Ellen just looks at him and whispers, "Daniel." Voila! The plot is advanced! Ah, well. ;)
A shell of a girl
As I've said many, many times, I am very easy to please when it comes to Kara Thrace. Namely, I just want more screentime, however I might get it! In that respect, this episode was so, so lovely. Even without the resurrection, she is barely there now. She doesn't know what the hell she is, and at this point she doesn't really care. She just wants it all to be over; however, the last time she was suicidal, she came back as something worse. It's never going to end. And since this is Kara Thrace, she almost gets off on the way it's eating her alive - or dead, as the case may be. I love the way she recites the morning speech in that monotone, the same way she has done for weeks (another short time jump.) Imagine getting up every morning, touching the extra set of dog tags, and not having a frakking clue what you are anymore. She has gone from lashing out at Gaeta in bitterness to shooting people with glee to just existing.
I love the scene with Helo and Hera. While I've seen some people call her rude for ditching the rest of his gift, I didn't interpret it that way at all. Watch the way her face changes as she picks up the recording. Everything else just fades away. It's a great parallel to their scene in her apartment on Caprica. She doesn't give a damn about all the other "stuff"; the two things she values are her father's music and his coat. Helo knows her well enough to understand how deeply this touches her.
From that point on, she's so open and unguarded. Her father's music is like a touchstone. When she's in the bar, her ribbing of Slick is snarky but without that bitter Starbuck edge. I don't think that Starbuck is entirely a façade to hide the big ol' softy underneath; it's a key part of who she is. But it's just so interesting to see her when she's a bit drunk and nostalgic and lets her guard down. And wow, that look on her face when she finally puts her hands on the keys ....
Random thoughts:
-- Sam as the new ship Hybrid? Sure looks that way. Such a sad fate for him as a person, but also somehow glorious.
-- I love seeing the minutiae of the daily lives on the ship, especially in that teaser. The sense of resignation is just so sad.
-- elzed pointed out that sex-in-the-head is now canon! Whee! A thousand fanfics have been proven right. Also: side breast! ;)
-- Yes, I know I haven't said anything about Boomer and Tyrol, mostly because I just really, really don't care about him for irrational reasons I can't even really explain.
-- People seem to think that Roslin is dead. Nah. She'll get a huge, heartbreaking death scene (as much as I love her, death is inevitable.) Her opened eyes as she collapsed is strange, but I think that she just went into some type of fugue state, akin to when she had the opera house visions. Looks like we'll be seeing that theater again very soon.
-- While I've never been as attached to the elders (Roslin and Adama) as much as the young 'uns, it's so interesting to see how much they've been sidelined lately. That makes sense for Roslin, given her cancer, but Adama barely does anything anymore. I think the writers are going for a "next generation" thing, with the old guard being replaced in both Command and the Cylon alliance, but it's still rather disconcerting.
-- How does the fleet manage to have so much alcohol? Eh, I'll handwave it. We do know that they have apples (Baltar ate one in that mess hall scene with Tory in 4.02), and I can buy that only the current food supply was contaminated in "The Passage". Growing new crops from scarce seedlings would take a while, but by now they might have a minimum of supplemental food sources.
-- The issue of nobody recognizing Boomer is also problematic, but I'm willing to handwave that as well. Hera is sweet and obviously ahead of the learning curve in some ways, but she's also creepy a three-year-old kid with a very, very frakked-up history. Yeah, she immediately recognized Sharon way back on the basestar, but a lot has happened since then. And while Helo definitely should've known he wasn't frakking his wife, he's also a guy who was getting laid. Okay, that's a flimsy excuse, but I'm happy to shrug it off because I'm just not as attached to their storyline as I want to be. Ah, well!
-- Also, why are many fans so hung up on how Hera MUST be the Only Cylon-Human Hybrid OMGs!!!? I've been scrolling through some boards and blogs, and a few people are downright offended that Kara might be a hybrid because it means Hera is no longer "special". As I said above, everyone else on the show thinks she's the only one, so she's still very valuable. Kara wasn't running around the opera house or in Six's cradle. Hera's conception, birth, and upbringing are very important to the Cylons. While the humans mostly treat her like an ordinary kid, they're highly invested in her safety. And even if she's not "special" or "unique" anymore, what's the big deal? Yeah, it goes against what we've seen thus far, but things change! If they're both Human-Cylon hybrids, then Kara and Hera still serve very different purposes on the show. (Besides, ain't nobody gonna know about Kara anytime soon. Even if she somehow finds out in private, no way in hell is she going to parade around the ship while yelling, "Guess what? I'm half-toaster!" And once everyone else finds out, Kara will most likely want nothing to do with any special destinies, given how much they've frakked up her life thus far.)
-- Bear McCreary's blog posts can get a bit tedious (and self-congratulatory, IMO), but his three-parter for this episode is really interesting, both for the creative process and the fun tidbits from the actors. He also has some neat quotes from Katee and the others.
-- Yes, Kara's "Wank as little as possible. Conserve your O2" made me giggle. Finally, someone acknowledges that onanism must be rampant on that ship!
-- I mentioned at the start of the post that I've been disheartened by all the negativity lately, so I was really relieved to see the glowing responses to Sepinwall's post-ep. (Yeah, I link to him way too much, but he's awesome.) I like reading his blog and the responses to get a feel for what people outside of fandom -- with all our biases and interpretations -- think of an episode.
-- Just noticed that I have the exact same shirt that Tory's wearing. Even the same shade of purple, except mine is much larger and has slightly different sleeves. Wow. I bought it at Old Navy last week. I guess the Gap empire has spread into outer spaaaaaaaace.
-- I missed Lee. Yay for him getting the new Quorum up and running, though it's going to be pretty chaotic if every single ship has a representative.
-- I also miss Pilots. I'm not angry that they've been sidelined lately, and I'm holding out hope. It's difficult, though!
-- I read the casting sides for Slick nearly a year ago; that's the only spoiler I had for this episode. Quite an interesting read. If you'd like to see them, here's a download link: sendspace.com/file/23gic5
-- Since my last few post-ep fics have been trumped by other excellent writers before I got around to finishing them (I'm way too slow), can I call dibs on a K/L fic featuring Kara's various projections? ;)
Whew. I'm too out-of-practice when it comes to post-ep meta. Perhaps I'll add more to this later. In the meantime, I'm going to curl up on the sofa and rewatch a third time!