I thought I might feel better if I wrote about this.

[thepresidentrix]

This isn't a review of Battlestar Galactica's final episode. I'll get to that tomorrow. Or... sometime, I'm sure. (I think it was probably a very beautiful conclusion, in a lot of ways. Certainly, there were moments when, contrary to my expectations, I felt real delight). I'm only putting this behind a cut so that anyone who cares about BSG, hasn't

Comments

[valancy_s]

what it is that makes me feel so bleak and sick inside... the fact that the show takes away everyone Lee ever really cared about, or the fact that it tries to manipulate me into feeling happy about and embracing the fact.

Thank you for putting it this way because you've helped me understand my own reaction. My sister and I were arguing during the show, when they showed Hot Dog and Tyrol in quick succession, and I complained that I couldn't get over Nicki being abandoned. "Humanity has been abandoned," said my sister. This made me mad because it seemed like an expression of the show's attitude. Because frankly, I don't care about Humanity. I care about individual relationships. I care about Tyrol and I don't want them to show him as someone who could forget about the son he's raised.

And then Lee was abandoned. And we're not supposed to mind, because Roslin's death and Adama's departure and Kara's disappearance are supposed to be interesting and say things about the philosophies of the show. We're not meant think about the

[snarkhunter]

Y'know, as I think about it more, I think Lee and Bill are both wrong.

He's going to come back eventually.

Bill Adama makes these grand, irrevocable gestures, and then ultimately changes his mind, or softens his heart, and takes them back. When he's come to terms with the loss of Laura, he'll realize he's left his son--AGAIN--and make his way back to Lee. Or Lee will find him.

I was seriously bothered by his not saying goodbye to Saul, too. They've been best friends for what? 30 years? And he just leaves? No. No. No. Even though Saul would probably understand--he's grieved for his wife, too.

On Kara's side of things, I don't necessarily regret her ending. On Lee's? You're right. It sucks. He's freaking Susan Pevensie in this ending.

[tinuviellen]

I like that thought. I agree, Bill isn't as much for all the never-never stuff as he thinks he is. That makes me feel better.

[thepresidentrix]

This is a really good point. I think this is what I'm going to tell myself to try to keep from getting any more overwrought about Lee and Bill.

As for Kara, I don't mind as *much,* (especially not from any betrayal/abandonment angle, at least) because if she was an apparition or an angel and her time was up, then she had to go. The scene itself could have been a little kinder to Lee's feelings, but I guess they felt it would be in keeping with Kara's character to make the final moments blunt.

I *am* disappointed that Kara never had to think about life - about moving on and actually living. It's a challenge she never really faced. I think of Lee telling her she's okay with dead guys but doesn't know what to do with the living ones. She didn't know what to do with her own living self, either, but as soon as she was a dead Kara, living on borrowed time and tilting toward Nirvana, suddenly everything got easy. (Angsty, but still kind of easy.). I wish she'd had to outlive her own 'purpose' because then she'd be just like the rest of us

[kurosawa]

I don't understand why Bill said he wasn't coming back. I HATED that he left Lee (and for that matter, Kara). I don't care that the woman you love is dying, you don't just leave your family! I assumed he would go off with Laura, she would die, he would bury her, and then he would return to Lee and Saul and they would go off together. I'm going to fanwank Bill's ending and say that's what really happened.

deep down, Tyrol is an ASS. I am not surprised he abandoned his child.

[thepresidentrix]

I guess Tyrol did turn out to be an ass, in the end. Maybe he's the flip-side of Saul Tigh. Tigh didn't seem, at the beginning, to have the moral fiber to become a real hero. His best qualities were probably his loyalty to Adama and his recognition that Adama was the better man. But by the end, he had become really noble

[kurosawa]

I APPROVE OF THIS SCENARIO. *thumbs up*