BSG 2.09, Flight of the Phoenix
Sep. 19th, 2005 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakBefore I go off to read the fabulous new BSG fanfic by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
k_julia, deborah_judge and garnettrees again, review time, as my computer finally delivered 2.09 to me.
One thing I noticed while having a look at other people's reviews: as much as reactions about the oxygen deprivation scene are divided on the shippery front involving Lee/Whoever you root for, they're also divided into Poor Sharon/ That Cylon Bitch, I Still Don't Trust her.
Now me, I like Sharon, much more than I did last season. (This Sharon. I always liked the other, dead Sharon, but the surviving one last season seemed a bit like a Bond Girl to me. Have no completely revised my opinion on this.) That doesn't mean I "trust" her in the sense of believing she's all for humanity now. Why should she be? Humanity, not surprising considering the earlier genocide-by-Cylons, is treating her like crap, and she never thought she had something to atone for to begin with, so it's not like she can endure this treatment by making it her penance. My guess is that her priorities right now are a) the baby, b) her own survival, and c) Helo and possibly Tyrol. That's that. As long as a, b, and c are best served by the remaining humans surviving as well, she'll help them. Either that or she is in fact still working for the larger Cylon agenda - last week's end scene showed that the Cylons have no problems sacrificing raiders to help Sharon - in a complicated way. We'll see. Whatever her aims are, I approve of the intelligence and bravery she displays, and find her intriguing. Right now, I'm more interested in her than in any of the other young females, including Kara.
Meanwhile, we see (again) that surviving genocide, war, and getting hunted are prone to bring out the worst in humanity. (Good qualities, too, but I'm getting to that.) Because there is a lot of disturbing human ugliness in this episode, and I think it's meant to be disturbing. Sharon's head used for target practice. Why Sharon instead of say, Leoben? Because they all knew and liked Sharon and can't forgive her for that. So they keep making her into a "thing" by any means possible. I have absolutely no opinion on the vibe of the Lee/Kara scene because I was too busy freaking out about their casual shooting at Sharon's image earlier. This is different from, say, Lee going for Sharon the moment he sees her in Home I, or Kara doing the same thing in Kobol's Last Gleaming - both completely understandable impulses. This is deliberate degradation of a person, and I was getting an Abu Ghraib vibe. (Given Ron Moore's comments on Flesh and Bone, I'm tending to think that could be deliberate.)
Cally getting a party upon her release: again, the ugliness of humanity. Because Cally committed a murder. No, they can't admit it, because Cylons have not-human status in their laws, but it was murder, just as what it was set to echo, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, was murder. I'm sure there were plenty of people who'd have thrown Ruby a party, too. Doesn't make him, or Cally, less of a murderer.
Sidenote: Laura Roslin ordering Leoben out of an airlock after promising him his life was also murder, though I suppose you could split hairs and say it was an execution of an enemy soldier ordered by the commander-in-chief. Moore in his blog on Flesh and Bone mentioned that he wanted to make both Laura's and Kara's actions in the episode understandable but not right - that it wasn't how he'd want his President to act, yet the audience should also see why Laura did this. Which is how it came across to me. Anyway, I only brought that up because we all tend to play favourites and use different standards for them, and as Roslin is my most beloved BSG character, I try to avoid that trap. Also - Tigh threatening the Chief earlier this season with spacing him while directly quoting the precedent set by the President, in combination with the deck crew's celebration of Cally in this episode, makes me think we're getting here a graphic illustration of where the, in lack of a better term, de-humanization of the enemy can and will lead to. If you treat your enemy as a "thing" all the time, you'll do that to your own people as well as soon as you regard them as your enemy. And the split of the fleet recently showed how easily this can happen.
Of the Men Who Love Cylons, Tyrol remains my favourite, more than ever. The confrontation between him and Helo had been waiting to happen. In other circumstances, if there had been only one Sharon, I think he would start to heal, but given there is another Sharon in immediate proximity, and that there is Cally, that's not going to happen soon. But note the priorities: Tyrol tries to channel his grief and rage into something useful - building the new viper - then, once that's done, goes to visit the other Sharon. Helo, charged with telling Sharon about the danger the ship is in, first asks about her memories and emotions re: Tyrol and then comes to the stuff important for everyone's lives. In conclusion: Helo = dumb boy. No wonder I prefer Tyrol.
Also? The last, silent scene between the Chief and Sharon was more intense, angsty and complex than anything between Helo and Sharon so far. For the record, while I think Sharon is going to use Tyrol's feelings for dead!Sharon/her as good as she can to stay alive, that doesn't mean she doesn't actually have emotions for him. Yes, emotions based on another's memories. But as my Darla said in another show, we are what our memories make us. And if Sharon didn't feel anything for Tyrol, she could have easily reassured Helo by saying so instead of that clever "you're first in my heart" which neatly avoids the answer to "'do you love him". Using someone and loving them at the same time is not mutually exclusive, as varius angsty universes have taught me.
Meanwhile, Doc Cottle is fresh out of wisecracks when he informs my beloved Laura her time is even shorter than he had told her before. And the way she takes it - disappearing in that small section of privacy, then coming back - very much reminds me of how she took the original news in the miniseries. And trust Laura Roslin to ask as her first verbal reaction whether she'll still be able to work. She's always been one for Luther's reply to the "what would you do if the world ended today?" question.
The scene with Adama in which she returns the book was a lovely bit of understated acting from both Olmos and McDonnell, harking back to Water when he gave it to her and thus formed the first human bond between them (after their necessary agreement at the end of the miniseries). You can see it's her way of telling him she won't be around much longer, and his way of realizing, without forcing her to say so outright. His asking for her advice also bodes well for their post-Home relationship. (And I can hear the Adama/Roslin 'shippers squee over the fact she stayed in his quarters.*g*) Incidentally, I don't see a conflict between Roslin's ruthless "space the Cylon" orders and her advice here. She's a pragmatist above all. What she did to Leoben was propelled by the view that his continued presence did more harm than good and there was no more useful info from him to be had in any case; when she ordered Sharon to be spaced originally, it was also because of the "Cylon = ongoing security risk and crew divider" principle. As soon as she saw Sharon could actually provide useful intel (as opposed to Leoben, who basically didn't tell Kara anything and told Laura only something designed to cause a split between her and Adama), she gave her a reprieve. Which isn't nice or humane, but Laura Roslin being pragmatic. Same with her advice to Adama here. In a situation where everyone's lives, including Sharon's and her babies, were at stake? Sharon could be useful.
Lastly, despite the shameless stringpulling, naming the viper (an embodiment of hope, lest we missed the anvil here) "Laura" touched me deeply. I wonder whose idea that was? I'd like it to have been Lee's, but he actually held out the longest against joining the effort to build the thing, so that's unlikely. It probably was Bill Adama's. Hmm. Maybe I'll write fanfic.
k_julia, deborah_judge and garnettrees again, review time, as my computer finally delivered 2.09 to me. One thing I noticed while having a look at other people's reviews: as much as reactions about the oxygen deprivation scene are divided on the shippery front involving Lee/Whoever you root for, they're also divided into Poor Sharon/ That Cylon Bitch, I Still Don't Trust her.
Now me, I like Sharon, much more than I did last season. (This Sharon. I always liked the other, dead Sharon, but the surviving one last season seemed a bit like a Bond Girl to me. Have no completely revised my opinion on this.) That doesn't mean I "trust" her in the sense of believing she's all for humanity now. Why should she be? Humanity, not surprising considering the earlier genocide-by-Cylons, is treating her like crap, and she never thought she had something to atone for to begin with, so it's not like she can endure this treatment by making it her penance. My guess is that her priorities right now are a) the baby, b) her own survival, and c) Helo and possibly Tyrol. That's that. As long as a, b, and c are best served by the remaining humans surviving as well, she'll help them. Either that or she is in fact still working for the larger Cylon agenda - last week's end scene showed that the Cylons have no problems sacrificing raiders to help Sharon - in a complicated way. We'll see. Whatever her aims are, I approve of the intelligence and bravery she displays, and find her intriguing. Right now, I'm more interested in her than in any of the other young females, including Kara.
Meanwhile, we see (again) that surviving genocide, war, and getting hunted are prone to bring out the worst in humanity. (Good qualities, too, but I'm getting to that.) Because there is a lot of disturbing human ugliness in this episode, and I think it's meant to be disturbing. Sharon's head used for target practice. Why Sharon instead of say, Leoben? Because they all knew and liked Sharon and can't forgive her for that. So they keep making her into a "thing" by any means possible. I have absolutely no opinion on the vibe of the Lee/Kara scene because I was too busy freaking out about their casual shooting at Sharon's image earlier. This is different from, say, Lee going for Sharon the moment he sees her in Home I, or Kara doing the same thing in Kobol's Last Gleaming - both completely understandable impulses. This is deliberate degradation of a person, and I was getting an Abu Ghraib vibe. (Given Ron Moore's comments on Flesh and Bone, I'm tending to think that could be deliberate.)
Cally getting a party upon her release: again, the ugliness of humanity. Because Cally committed a murder. No, they can't admit it, because Cylons have not-human status in their laws, but it was murder, just as what it was set to echo, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, was murder. I'm sure there were plenty of people who'd have thrown Ruby a party, too. Doesn't make him, or Cally, less of a murderer.
Sidenote: Laura Roslin ordering Leoben out of an airlock after promising him his life was also murder, though I suppose you could split hairs and say it was an execution of an enemy soldier ordered by the commander-in-chief. Moore in his blog on Flesh and Bone mentioned that he wanted to make both Laura's and Kara's actions in the episode understandable but not right - that it wasn't how he'd want his President to act, yet the audience should also see why Laura did this. Which is how it came across to me. Anyway, I only brought that up because we all tend to play favourites and use different standards for them, and as Roslin is my most beloved BSG character, I try to avoid that trap. Also - Tigh threatening the Chief earlier this season with spacing him while directly quoting the precedent set by the President, in combination with the deck crew's celebration of Cally in this episode, makes me think we're getting here a graphic illustration of where the, in lack of a better term, de-humanization of the enemy can and will lead to. If you treat your enemy as a "thing" all the time, you'll do that to your own people as well as soon as you regard them as your enemy. And the split of the fleet recently showed how easily this can happen.
Of the Men Who Love Cylons, Tyrol remains my favourite, more than ever. The confrontation between him and Helo had been waiting to happen. In other circumstances, if there had been only one Sharon, I think he would start to heal, but given there is another Sharon in immediate proximity, and that there is Cally, that's not going to happen soon. But note the priorities: Tyrol tries to channel his grief and rage into something useful - building the new viper - then, once that's done, goes to visit the other Sharon. Helo, charged with telling Sharon about the danger the ship is in, first asks about her memories and emotions re: Tyrol and then comes to the stuff important for everyone's lives. In conclusion: Helo = dumb boy. No wonder I prefer Tyrol.
Also? The last, silent scene between the Chief and Sharon was more intense, angsty and complex than anything between Helo and Sharon so far. For the record, while I think Sharon is going to use Tyrol's feelings for dead!Sharon/her as good as she can to stay alive, that doesn't mean she doesn't actually have emotions for him. Yes, emotions based on another's memories. But as my Darla said in another show, we are what our memories make us. And if Sharon didn't feel anything for Tyrol, she could have easily reassured Helo by saying so instead of that clever "you're first in my heart" which neatly avoids the answer to "'do you love him". Using someone and loving them at the same time is not mutually exclusive, as varius angsty universes have taught me.
Meanwhile, Doc Cottle is fresh out of wisecracks when he informs my beloved Laura her time is even shorter than he had told her before. And the way she takes it - disappearing in that small section of privacy, then coming back - very much reminds me of how she took the original news in the miniseries. And trust Laura Roslin to ask as her first verbal reaction whether she'll still be able to work. She's always been one for Luther's reply to the "what would you do if the world ended today?" question.
The scene with Adama in which she returns the book was a lovely bit of understated acting from both Olmos and McDonnell, harking back to Water when he gave it to her and thus formed the first human bond between them (after their necessary agreement at the end of the miniseries). You can see it's her way of telling him she won't be around much longer, and his way of realizing, without forcing her to say so outright. His asking for her advice also bodes well for their post-Home relationship. (And I can hear the Adama/Roslin 'shippers squee over the fact she stayed in his quarters.*g*) Incidentally, I don't see a conflict between Roslin's ruthless "space the Cylon" orders and her advice here. She's a pragmatist above all. What she did to Leoben was propelled by the view that his continued presence did more harm than good and there was no more useful info from him to be had in any case; when she ordered Sharon to be spaced originally, it was also because of the "Cylon = ongoing security risk and crew divider" principle. As soon as she saw Sharon could actually provide useful intel (as opposed to Leoben, who basically didn't tell Kara anything and told Laura only something designed to cause a split between her and Adama), she gave her a reprieve. Which isn't nice or humane, but Laura Roslin being pragmatic. Same with her advice to Adama here. In a situation where everyone's lives, including Sharon's and her babies, were at stake? Sharon could be useful.
Lastly, despite the shameless stringpulling, naming the viper (an embodiment of hope, lest we missed the anvil here) "Laura" touched me deeply. I wonder whose idea that was? I'd like it to have been Lee's, but he actually held out the longest against joining the effort to build the thing, so that's unlikely. It probably was Bill Adama's. Hmm. Maybe I'll write fanfic.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 08:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 12:21 pm (UTC)No, I can decypher "I" and "kiss", but nothing in between.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 12:22 pm (UTC)& ;-)
Glad you like!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 02:24 pm (UTC)More even than by Sharon's picture in the shooting range, I was freaked out by the scene of the destruction of the Cylon fleet, which by itself is a little silly, but I realised later on that in the context of that 'human ugliness' you're describing that permeates the entire episode, my reaction made a lot more sense.
I can understand where they're coming from, being angry with Helo, and it was good to put the fallout there in an episode that generally deals with the dismal situation these people are in because of a genocide committed by the Cylons. But it really doesn't bring out the best in people.
And I really had to eat my words on the post-Home Roslin/Adama front. That was some nice interaction.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 04:40 pm (UTC)Yes. Maybe if the humans had won the war, and had time to recover, there would have been only some awkwardness, by and large, but these people never get to the post in Post Traumatic Stress Syndrom. To borrow a simile by Ted Hughes, it's like being with a hunted fox, surrounded by dogs; the fox won't be nice and cuddle, it will bite you in nine of ten cases.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-05 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 02:39 pm (UTC)So they keep making her into a "thing" by any means possible.
I was totally creeped out by the target practice, and by the fact that Kara didn't call Lee out. And the giggling! I guess that was from oxygen deprivation, but still...
Helo is dumb but he amuses me. Chief, though, is awesome. I surmise from your Darla quote that you're an AtS fan; Chief almost reminds me of Wes sometimes. He was never as comic as early Wes, but he seems to be getting broken little by little. They both have/had to deal with something that wears the face of a dead love.
Excellent review.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 04:43 pm (UTC)I actually figured out the giggling was due to the oxygen deprivation pretty early one due to, ahem, a B7 famfoc in which this happened to Avon, but I was so creeped out already that it didn't matter.
Yes, big AtS (and BtVS) fan here. I hadn't thought about the comparison with Wesley, mostly because I associate the Chief with O'Brien of DS9, but you're right, there are definite parallels.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 04:49 pm (UTC)I mean: Sharon is the only character in the entire series who is pregnant.
Racetrack insults Sharon by calling her "that Cylon whore"; then Helo and Tyrol fight over Sharon and "that freak in her belly"... The men being "tricked" into impregnating an evil female harking back to so many patriarchal misogynies... When Sharon stole Starbuck's raider on Caprica, Starbuck called her a "bitch", out of all possible insults...
The simultaneous desexualisation of the human females with the femininisation of the Cylons (Six and Boomer are the only regular characters who are Cylons), and the enemy-objectification of the Cylons... While meanwhile the Cylons are also farming human women and objectifying them ("baby-machines") for their fertility?
On either side of the conflict, females lose.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 08:08 pm (UTC)Tyrol has really blossomed for me this season. The actor has really tackled the heavy dramatic scenes splendidly and I gained a huge amount of respect for him for his shipbuilding project. One thing that kind of rang false for me was Tigh and Apollo not supporting him instantly. They had to be aware that they eventually would have to replace ships.
On a related subject noone seems concerned that there apparently is only one doctor in the entire fleet; not to mention the technicans getting whittled down on Kobol. So far the only concern over training personnel is with the Viper pilots.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 06:13 am (UTC)True, that was a plot device. As for your other point, you're right - there should be emergency classes for medical personnel and technicians at least.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 11:43 pm (UTC)The context, to me, was that he had already told her something of the threat; note that after their little confrontation, he says something like "OK, let's get back to this", and goes back to describing the issue in more detail. I even remember thinking "he paused the 'save the ship' convo for this? Man, he must be panicking over the Tyrol fight." I might have misheard, mind you.
Does that make more sense?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 05:27 am (UTC)I really liked Tyrol in this; he is growing through all the adversity, and finding a way to create something that brings hope to the fleet gives him a real strength.
Anyone else wonder about that little scene with Dualla and Apollo? There was some definite heat there. Billy better watch out, methinks.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 06:24 am (UTC)