BSG 2.02 "Valley of Darkness"
Jul. 24th, 2005 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAnd I continue to be a happy and grateful fangirl. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
karabair was right, if last week was mainly for the boys, this week the emphasis was on the girls.
Both the regulars and recurring ones. Cally on Kobol continues to rock, and I so love they didn't go the expected route and let Tyrol be the one who talks her into keeping it together, but vice versa. Not that I didn't love Tyrol in this episode as well. Heck, I love him in general. So the O'Brien of BSG. But sadly, it's still worth pointing out that it's a rare show where we get so many interesting female characters who aren't the token women or the ones who embody an issue or two but are just themselves. Cally is a mechanic with some military training (as we saw in Bastille Day), but she's not treated differently than say, Socinus, in terms of the writing. (Except that Cally survives, so far. Which I'm very glad about.)
Dualla, also recurring, manages to get more character scenes in the episodes she's in, including this one, than poor regular Uhura ever did. Her bitterness at Billy at the beginning was unfair and entirely realistic; the shock later, snapping out of it, the exchange with Billy re: his gun and then their final scene - I just love her (and Billy), and I usually don't go for the sweet characters. Maybe because Dualla is also salty.*g*
Starbuck on Caprica: aw, Kara. I like the rapport she has with Helo (and hope this remains a friendship - way more interesting than UST in Kara's life right now), and the look at her old life and apartment. We had precious little backstory on Kara - the Zak tragedy, and the hints that what Leoben said about her mother might be true - and in a way, that fits with what she tells Helo in this episode - she doesn't fight to get something back, she fights because she doesn't know how to do anything else. Kara lives in the moment. Except she doesn't. The Zak thing is still with her, and so is the mother declaring her worthless and the (I'm guessing) long-dead and idealized father. Which influences both her hero worship of Adama and her reaction on discovering there is some clay on that pedestal after all in Kobol's Last Gleaming. Speaking of Adama, the paintings and the music in Kara's apartment, declared to be "not you" by Helo (i.e. not what he expects from brash hotshot pilot Starbuck) mirror, in their way, the books and paintings we see in Adama's cabin on Galactica (which from the miniseries onwards made it clear he's not genre military stereotype).
But of course, given my preference, my personal highlights of the episode were the scenes involving Laura Roslin. Her ordering the guard to release her showcased her steely resolve, and much as she did in the miniseries when everyone on board her ship was panicking, she kept it together, gave them something to do, used the abilities of the people around her and led them to safety. Such details as her kneeling down next to the dead woman and her telling Billy to address Dualla by her rank to get D out of her shock showed her mixture of empathy and rationality. And she's no Superwoman, either; she, too, had her moment of panic, in her scream when the Cylon Centurion advanced. She's human. (And has never been in combat before; loved that the show took that into acount.) And of course I adored her scenes with Lee. I don't 'ship the two of them in the romantic sense, but I'm glad to see my impression the connection between them is still strong and important to both of them confirmed. Yes, Lee is always a good ally to have, but she cares for him personally, and it shows.
Also? She's so outclassing Tigh. Don't get me wrong, I like Tigh. (And was glad his military experience enabled him to realize what the Cylons were going for.) But as Ron Moore said in his podcast for Scattered, Tigh is great in a gunfire situation, but you don't want to have him in charge once the guns are silenced. He's losing the propaganda and public perception war already. Sending Laura back to the brig makes him look petty and tyrannical while her calm acceptance makes her look noble. The way she swept out of the room on her own accord, with the guard trailing behind her more like a bodyguard than a prison guard, should have clued him in that he had no control over this woman, but then, Tigh thinks in military terms. As the conversation between Adama and Roslin at the end of Colonial Day pointed out, in war, you can lose and die only once. In politics, you die again and again, and you come back again and again. Tigh probably assumes because Laura Roslin surrendered on Colonial One, she lost, and that's that (hence his "you went against the old man and you lost" remark in Scattered). Methinks he'll get his wakeup call soon, especially if he doesn't change her guard. (And even if he does, that guard is so going to spread the tale of St. Laura who survived miraculously, brought everyone to safety, and is nobly and stoically being a prisoner to Tigh the Rude.)
In terms of Laura's beliefs, it's worth noting she invokes the gods when expressing her hope for Lee's survival. To my knowledge, she hasn't done that before. It's more a sign of her internalizing religion (beyond the prophecy issue, I mean) than her reaction to the guard asking her to pray with him last week was.
Speaking of religion: this week's way of featuring Mr. Olmos outside of his horizontal shots was in a Baltar hallucination, which ties in a creepy, interesting way with the miniseries (where Six killed a baby), in a mirror image. Second baby to get killed by a main character on screen, though we still didn't see the imaginary baby, aka the shape of things to come, in close-up. Now clearly this is a Six-caused image, but note the difference to the first season where all her advice to Baltar and hold on Baltar circled around his need for self-preservation. Now she's trying to make him protective of that hybrid of Cylons and humans the Cylons want to produce, and it does seem to work. And you know, the thing about the Cylons? They usually manipulate with the truth more than with lies. It's all too likely that human reaction to a hybrid would be to kill it.
Similarly, what Six says about human sacrifices to the Gods on Kobol may or may not be true; if it is, it could mean a severe religious shock coming up for both Starbuck and Roslin once Kara gets that arrow back to Kobol and does open the tomb of Athena. But of course everything she says about the humans is true for the Cylons as well. Humans and Cylons continue to mirror each other and are unable to acknowledge that they do.
karabair was right, if last week was mainly for the boys, this week the emphasis was on the girls.Both the regulars and recurring ones. Cally on Kobol continues to rock, and I so love they didn't go the expected route and let Tyrol be the one who talks her into keeping it together, but vice versa. Not that I didn't love Tyrol in this episode as well. Heck, I love him in general. So the O'Brien of BSG. But sadly, it's still worth pointing out that it's a rare show where we get so many interesting female characters who aren't the token women or the ones who embody an issue or two but are just themselves. Cally is a mechanic with some military training (as we saw in Bastille Day), but she's not treated differently than say, Socinus, in terms of the writing. (Except that Cally survives, so far. Which I'm very glad about.)
Dualla, also recurring, manages to get more character scenes in the episodes she's in, including this one, than poor regular Uhura ever did. Her bitterness at Billy at the beginning was unfair and entirely realistic; the shock later, snapping out of it, the exchange with Billy re: his gun and then their final scene - I just love her (and Billy), and I usually don't go for the sweet characters. Maybe because Dualla is also salty.*g*
Starbuck on Caprica: aw, Kara. I like the rapport she has with Helo (and hope this remains a friendship - way more interesting than UST in Kara's life right now), and the look at her old life and apartment. We had precious little backstory on Kara - the Zak tragedy, and the hints that what Leoben said about her mother might be true - and in a way, that fits with what she tells Helo in this episode - she doesn't fight to get something back, she fights because she doesn't know how to do anything else. Kara lives in the moment. Except she doesn't. The Zak thing is still with her, and so is the mother declaring her worthless and the (I'm guessing) long-dead and idealized father. Which influences both her hero worship of Adama and her reaction on discovering there is some clay on that pedestal after all in Kobol's Last Gleaming. Speaking of Adama, the paintings and the music in Kara's apartment, declared to be "not you" by Helo (i.e. not what he expects from brash hotshot pilot Starbuck) mirror, in their way, the books and paintings we see in Adama's cabin on Galactica (which from the miniseries onwards made it clear he's not genre military stereotype).
But of course, given my preference, my personal highlights of the episode were the scenes involving Laura Roslin. Her ordering the guard to release her showcased her steely resolve, and much as she did in the miniseries when everyone on board her ship was panicking, she kept it together, gave them something to do, used the abilities of the people around her and led them to safety. Such details as her kneeling down next to the dead woman and her telling Billy to address Dualla by her rank to get D out of her shock showed her mixture of empathy and rationality. And she's no Superwoman, either; she, too, had her moment of panic, in her scream when the Cylon Centurion advanced. She's human. (And has never been in combat before; loved that the show took that into acount.) And of course I adored her scenes with Lee. I don't 'ship the two of them in the romantic sense, but I'm glad to see my impression the connection between them is still strong and important to both of them confirmed. Yes, Lee is always a good ally to have, but she cares for him personally, and it shows.
Also? She's so outclassing Tigh. Don't get me wrong, I like Tigh. (And was glad his military experience enabled him to realize what the Cylons were going for.) But as Ron Moore said in his podcast for Scattered, Tigh is great in a gunfire situation, but you don't want to have him in charge once the guns are silenced. He's losing the propaganda and public perception war already. Sending Laura back to the brig makes him look petty and tyrannical while her calm acceptance makes her look noble. The way she swept out of the room on her own accord, with the guard trailing behind her more like a bodyguard than a prison guard, should have clued him in that he had no control over this woman, but then, Tigh thinks in military terms. As the conversation between Adama and Roslin at the end of Colonial Day pointed out, in war, you can lose and die only once. In politics, you die again and again, and you come back again and again. Tigh probably assumes because Laura Roslin surrendered on Colonial One, she lost, and that's that (hence his "you went against the old man and you lost" remark in Scattered). Methinks he'll get his wakeup call soon, especially if he doesn't change her guard. (And even if he does, that guard is so going to spread the tale of St. Laura who survived miraculously, brought everyone to safety, and is nobly and stoically being a prisoner to Tigh the Rude.)
In terms of Laura's beliefs, it's worth noting she invokes the gods when expressing her hope for Lee's survival. To my knowledge, she hasn't done that before. It's more a sign of her internalizing religion (beyond the prophecy issue, I mean) than her reaction to the guard asking her to pray with him last week was.
Speaking of religion: this week's way of featuring Mr. Olmos outside of his horizontal shots was in a Baltar hallucination, which ties in a creepy, interesting way with the miniseries (where Six killed a baby), in a mirror image. Second baby to get killed by a main character on screen, though we still didn't see the imaginary baby, aka the shape of things to come, in close-up. Now clearly this is a Six-caused image, but note the difference to the first season where all her advice to Baltar and hold on Baltar circled around his need for self-preservation. Now she's trying to make him protective of that hybrid of Cylons and humans the Cylons want to produce, and it does seem to work. And you know, the thing about the Cylons? They usually manipulate with the truth more than with lies. It's all too likely that human reaction to a hybrid would be to kill it.
Similarly, what Six says about human sacrifices to the Gods on Kobol may or may not be true; if it is, it could mean a severe religious shock coming up for both Starbuck and Roslin once Kara gets that arrow back to Kobol and does open the tomb of Athena. But of course everything she says about the humans is true for the Cylons as well. Humans and Cylons continue to mirror each other and are unable to acknowledge that they do.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 08:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 03:30 pm (UTC)the amazing thing about the first two eps of this season is that they're making me like every single character more than I already did, even those who are at odds with each other. (well, I don't know about LIKING Gaius, but they're still showing more dimensions to him).
I'm also particularly loving Billy more and more, since KLG, when he didnt' agree with Roslin but stood by her (and continues to) ever since. plus the 12-year-old in my snickered over Lee's "have you ever handled a weapon, Billy?"
no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 04:31 pm (UTC)Oh, come on, admit to liking him. I do. *g*
And yay, Billy! He's truly loyal, but not blindly so, which is the best kind of loyalty, and brave, and I was really glad he and Dualla made up, because it would have been heartbreaking if their relationship would have been destroyed because of their clashing loyalties...
no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 05:37 pm (UTC)"Tigh the Rude" is making me giggle. He's out of his depth, and I have a feeling that things are only going to get worse for him...
no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 06:35 pm (UTC)Definitely. Especially if he has to cope with Zarek as well as Laura Roslin, and then there's the alliance his wife made with Zarek which he knows nothing about...
no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-24 08:45 pm (UTC)I love Tigh, he's probably my favorite on this show, but I think you're right - the poor man knows nothing about politics. He's done a fine job so far commanding Galactica while Adama's unconscious, and he's great in a fight, but now he's going to have to try to lead civilians, and he's going to be way out of his depth. He's doing the best he can to solve a situation he didn't create - removing Roslin was not his idea, after all - but I'm guessing things are going to get worse very quickly.
Angst! I love this show! *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 05:17 am (UTC)Angst! I love this show!
Me too!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 02:32 am (UTC)But it sure sounds amazing!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 05:20 am (UTC)