Lay Down Your Burdens I + II
Mar. 12th, 2006 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI'm glad I waited with my review until I had seen both parts, because as I hoped, one of my complaints that would have been was addressed, and like last season's concluding two-parter, they make more sense together.
To wit, Sharon. When Part I showed her going along and helping the Galacticans, I thought this was horribly wrong, not after the loss of her baby. Luckily, part II made it up for me by that scene between her and Helo. Now that made emotional sense to me - why, right now, should she care about any of them anymore?
Now, I called it about Roslin losing the elections in my review of the abortion episode, and when LDYB I opened with her in victory mood and lightyears ahead in the polls, I was certain of it. How much of your principles are you willing to sacrifice? is an ongoing question for all the "good" characters, and none more than Roslin, who ever since breaking out of jail had had a winning streak throughout the year. But after the discovery of a hospitable planet, the tide turns, and when she tells Baltar at the end of I "frak yourself", it's a sure sign that the self-possessed, steely Laura is actually considering the possibility that she might lose.
What I hadn't expected, but thought of as excellent and logical storytelling, was her willing to rig the elections to win. In the miniseries, Adama declares the last thing he wants is a military coup; of course, that is what he does at the end of the first season. In the second season, Roslin starts as the embodiment of democracy and declares she'll never tolerate an illegal government takeover; and at the end of the season, she attempts just that. (Additional bonus points for letting Baltar tell Zarek that Laura Roslin would not do such a thing, that she's not corrupt, when Zarek suspects this. More about the implications for Baltar later.) It's also beautifully fitting that Adama stops her. Checks and balances, again. He could have become a military dictator without her. She could have become a corrupt tyrant without him.
(Of course, both of them in the end doing the right thing has disastrous consequences, but there you go. Nobody ever said doing the right thing is always rewarded by fate smiling on you.)
It also answers something I've been wondering: would Adama keep faith with democracy if the President isn't Laura Roslin? (We know what Roslin would do if the commander isn't William Adama but someone she perceives to be a danger to humanity. See also: Cain assassination plan.) He would, and does. Seldom have I loved Adama more.
Sidenote: in the past, this would have also been Lee Adama's position. But alas, ever since Home Lee basically only got emo plots about his manpain and 'shippiness, as opposed to active participation in confrontations about politics and principles. Which resulted in me losing nearly all interest in the character. I was honestly relieved when he wasn't at all in Downloaded and only briefly in the last two episodes, because of that lack of interest.
Meanwhile, Kara: broke her streak of being interesting in the second half of the season. I guess I'm an anti-shipper when it comes to both Kara and Lee, separately or with each other, because the Kara scenes I liked best was her meeting the Tighs, and Leoben looking for her (and she wasn't even in the later one); her and Anders and Lee, well, I thought she was being cruel, couldn't decide whether in a thoughtless or deliberate way, but either way, just wanted to get back to the political plot. And when we saw Anders with pneunomia? I thought this was the cheapest thing since Lee's Long Lost Love Flashbacks Of Pain from "Black Market", because well, now that he's served his function of creating angst and distance between Lee and Kara, they don't need him anymore and want to get rid of him. Pfff. But like I said, I do like the scenes with the Tighs, because I always thought Kara's and Tigh's antagonism resulted from them being too similar, which also could provide grounds for bonding.
Speaking of the Tighs: loved that Ellen obviously stuck it out with her Saul. See, that's why I adore them in their glorious Edward Albee-ness - they really can't do without each other, and it's not just one sided. Did we see Ellen down at Baltar's, or hanging out with Zarek? No. Undoubtedly she and Tigh bitched at each other throughout the year about his staying on Galactica until that last year, and undoubtedly she had an affair with, say, Gaeta just to annoy him, but she remained with him. I *heart* the Tighs.
And now for the new President and the various incarnations of Model No.6. Not perfectly written - I thought the multiple whores were overdone, we'd have gotten the point with a little more subtlety, too, Ron - but showing, again, that next to Mary McDonnell and Edward Olmos, Tricia Helfer and James Callis really have become the best thing this show has in season 2. (Sorry, Katee Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber fans, and it's imo, as always, but that is my distinct impression.) They, too, have come full circle, in a way. When Baltar, trying to persuade Gina to come down to New Caprica to him, says "this way, we can be together again", you realize something that was hinted but not explicit in his scenes with her in "Epiphanies" - he might be rationally aware that she's a different incarnation, but emotionally he does see her as the original Six from Caprica. As for Gina, I don't think she loved Baltar, and I think she was planning to blow herself up (together with as many humans as possible) for a good long while now, with the news that the Cylons left Caprica acting as a trigger, but she did care for him, as he had been the only human who ever showed consideration for her, and her decision to have sex with him after all was her goodbye to him. In its way, it was a repetition and counterpoint to the miniseries as well, of course: Baltar, a Six, sex, a nuclear attack, doom for humanity (though the later with a year space between). Only this time you don't have the vain self-confident genius who can't imagine death and a Six secure in her faith that she's doing the right thing, you have two completely - though in different ways - damaged people.
Paradoxically, I think winning the elections (or rather, finding out why he didn't lose them) and Gina's ensuing death-plus-mass-murder (with the blood of however many people were on Cloud Nine on Baltar's hands as he both brought Gina back to life, provided her with a bomb and in the crucial moment couldn't see what her offering herself to him while telling him there would be no life together on New Caprica really meant) was what destroyed Baltar's last ties to humanity. There is no reason to suspect he wasn't sincere when telling Zarek that Roslin wasn't corrupt, would not cheat to gain power in an election. He entered the race to spite her and probably grew to genuinely hate her after - as far as he knows - the baby died because of her - but I think he respected her. That is gone after getting the news from Adama. Gina is gone, and she - along with the prospect of a child - was one of the few things Baltar did care about other than himself, and though he's a narcisisst, he also loathes himself in equal measure. (No, not enough, but he did care.) And he has become a murderer-by-association all over again, stuck in an office he wanted for all the wrong reasons. So no, I'm not surprised that a year later, we find him in a stupor of pills, alcohol and signficantly joyless sex. (Though again, we didn't need a sledgehammer to get it.)
And then we get the grand finale, and the eeriest reunion scene ever. We've seen how the perceptions Six and Baltar have of each other differ from reality in Downloaded, and reality has just become that much more fractured and miserable in the case of Gaius Baltar, whereas Six is full of renewed purpose. (What purpose? Looks like the solution she hit on is to replace genocidale plans for humanity with ruling-for-their-own good. Which, you know, if you're a Cylon in love with a human, makes sense.) I've seen predictions that Six when presented with Real!Baltar will fall out of love in disillusion, but you know, the one she was in love with in the miniseries to begin with was the guy she saw having sex with someone else, who refused to tell her he loved her, and who reacted to the "I'm a Cylon and I just used you to wipe out humanity" news with "I need a lawyer!", so I don't think so. I also think her presence will shake him out of his stupor, that he'll try to become someone she can respect. I don't think this will benefit humanity, though. He didn't exactly have a choice about a surrender - as Doral points out - any more than Adar did in the miniseries, but I think he will now be the deliberate tool of the Cylons in remaining in government.
Sidenote: I've seen comparisons to the Vichy government, both in reviews and by Moore in an interview, and am not sure how I feel about that, simply because if it's a strict analogy, then it feels like a step back as far as the Cylons are concerned, as well as a very black and white situation - heroic resistance (led by Kara, Tigh et al) versus Baltar plus Cylons as the embodiment of evil. Something more interesting and more difficult would be a Cylon occupation that takes away human freedom but actually offers a good goverment in terms of provisions with food, genuine buildings, a good economy etc., because that would ask the trickier question of the first Matrix movie. Would you take a miserable free and hunted existence over a cozy, nice and completely unfree one? It's easy to rebel if the occupying force puts a part of the population in camps, and not so much if it doesn't.
(Also, I'm having bad Trek flashbacks, to The Killing Game on Voyager and the Enterprise eps at the start of season 4. On the other hand, the only Trek which did good with WWII era and Nazi analogies was DS9, so maybe I should be optimistic in that regard.)
Lastly: Tyrol and Cally. This works for me if he feels so guilty about what happened when she woke up him up from his nightmare that after her confession of her feelings, he can't do anything but get together with her. Otherwise I'd still have a problem with the whole Cally-murdering-Boomer thing. However, I'm thoroughly enamored by the idea of Tyrol-as-union leader.
Which, however, begs the question: where is Tom Zarek? He wasn't at Baltar's swearing-in, either, so I have the ugly suspicion that he might have been on Cloud Nine when Gina blew it up. Please, say it ain't so. I don't care whether he starts the next season making another uneasy alliance with Roslin for the new Resistance or deciding to collaborate with Baltar and the Cylons, but be there he must.
To wit, Sharon. When Part I showed her going along and helping the Galacticans, I thought this was horribly wrong, not after the loss of her baby. Luckily, part II made it up for me by that scene between her and Helo. Now that made emotional sense to me - why, right now, should she care about any of them anymore?
Now, I called it about Roslin losing the elections in my review of the abortion episode, and when LDYB I opened with her in victory mood and lightyears ahead in the polls, I was certain of it. How much of your principles are you willing to sacrifice? is an ongoing question for all the "good" characters, and none more than Roslin, who ever since breaking out of jail had had a winning streak throughout the year. But after the discovery of a hospitable planet, the tide turns, and when she tells Baltar at the end of I "frak yourself", it's a sure sign that the self-possessed, steely Laura is actually considering the possibility that she might lose.
What I hadn't expected, but thought of as excellent and logical storytelling, was her willing to rig the elections to win. In the miniseries, Adama declares the last thing he wants is a military coup; of course, that is what he does at the end of the first season. In the second season, Roslin starts as the embodiment of democracy and declares she'll never tolerate an illegal government takeover; and at the end of the season, she attempts just that. (Additional bonus points for letting Baltar tell Zarek that Laura Roslin would not do such a thing, that she's not corrupt, when Zarek suspects this. More about the implications for Baltar later.) It's also beautifully fitting that Adama stops her. Checks and balances, again. He could have become a military dictator without her. She could have become a corrupt tyrant without him.
(Of course, both of them in the end doing the right thing has disastrous consequences, but there you go. Nobody ever said doing the right thing is always rewarded by fate smiling on you.)
It also answers something I've been wondering: would Adama keep faith with democracy if the President isn't Laura Roslin? (We know what Roslin would do if the commander isn't William Adama but someone she perceives to be a danger to humanity. See also: Cain assassination plan.) He would, and does. Seldom have I loved Adama more.
Sidenote: in the past, this would have also been Lee Adama's position. But alas, ever since Home Lee basically only got emo plots about his manpain and 'shippiness, as opposed to active participation in confrontations about politics and principles. Which resulted in me losing nearly all interest in the character. I was honestly relieved when he wasn't at all in Downloaded and only briefly in the last two episodes, because of that lack of interest.
Meanwhile, Kara: broke her streak of being interesting in the second half of the season. I guess I'm an anti-shipper when it comes to both Kara and Lee, separately or with each other, because the Kara scenes I liked best was her meeting the Tighs, and Leoben looking for her (and she wasn't even in the later one); her and Anders and Lee, well, I thought she was being cruel, couldn't decide whether in a thoughtless or deliberate way, but either way, just wanted to get back to the political plot. And when we saw Anders with pneunomia? I thought this was the cheapest thing since Lee's Long Lost Love Flashbacks Of Pain from "Black Market", because well, now that he's served his function of creating angst and distance between Lee and Kara, they don't need him anymore and want to get rid of him. Pfff. But like I said, I do like the scenes with the Tighs, because I always thought Kara's and Tigh's antagonism resulted from them being too similar, which also could provide grounds for bonding.
Speaking of the Tighs: loved that Ellen obviously stuck it out with her Saul. See, that's why I adore them in their glorious Edward Albee-ness - they really can't do without each other, and it's not just one sided. Did we see Ellen down at Baltar's, or hanging out with Zarek? No. Undoubtedly she and Tigh bitched at each other throughout the year about his staying on Galactica until that last year, and undoubtedly she had an affair with, say, Gaeta just to annoy him, but she remained with him. I *heart* the Tighs.
And now for the new President and the various incarnations of Model No.6. Not perfectly written - I thought the multiple whores were overdone, we'd have gotten the point with a little more subtlety, too, Ron - but showing, again, that next to Mary McDonnell and Edward Olmos, Tricia Helfer and James Callis really have become the best thing this show has in season 2. (Sorry, Katee Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber fans, and it's imo, as always, but that is my distinct impression.) They, too, have come full circle, in a way. When Baltar, trying to persuade Gina to come down to New Caprica to him, says "this way, we can be together again", you realize something that was hinted but not explicit in his scenes with her in "Epiphanies" - he might be rationally aware that she's a different incarnation, but emotionally he does see her as the original Six from Caprica. As for Gina, I don't think she loved Baltar, and I think she was planning to blow herself up (together with as many humans as possible) for a good long while now, with the news that the Cylons left Caprica acting as a trigger, but she did care for him, as he had been the only human who ever showed consideration for her, and her decision to have sex with him after all was her goodbye to him. In its way, it was a repetition and counterpoint to the miniseries as well, of course: Baltar, a Six, sex, a nuclear attack, doom for humanity (though the later with a year space between). Only this time you don't have the vain self-confident genius who can't imagine death and a Six secure in her faith that she's doing the right thing, you have two completely - though in different ways - damaged people.
Paradoxically, I think winning the elections (or rather, finding out why he didn't lose them) and Gina's ensuing death-plus-mass-murder (with the blood of however many people were on Cloud Nine on Baltar's hands as he both brought Gina back to life, provided her with a bomb and in the crucial moment couldn't see what her offering herself to him while telling him there would be no life together on New Caprica really meant) was what destroyed Baltar's last ties to humanity. There is no reason to suspect he wasn't sincere when telling Zarek that Roslin wasn't corrupt, would not cheat to gain power in an election. He entered the race to spite her and probably grew to genuinely hate her after - as far as he knows - the baby died because of her - but I think he respected her. That is gone after getting the news from Adama. Gina is gone, and she - along with the prospect of a child - was one of the few things Baltar did care about other than himself, and though he's a narcisisst, he also loathes himself in equal measure. (No, not enough, but he did care.) And he has become a murderer-by-association all over again, stuck in an office he wanted for all the wrong reasons. So no, I'm not surprised that a year later, we find him in a stupor of pills, alcohol and signficantly joyless sex. (Though again, we didn't need a sledgehammer to get it.)
And then we get the grand finale, and the eeriest reunion scene ever. We've seen how the perceptions Six and Baltar have of each other differ from reality in Downloaded, and reality has just become that much more fractured and miserable in the case of Gaius Baltar, whereas Six is full of renewed purpose. (What purpose? Looks like the solution she hit on is to replace genocidale plans for humanity with ruling-for-their-own good. Which, you know, if you're a Cylon in love with a human, makes sense.) I've seen predictions that Six when presented with Real!Baltar will fall out of love in disillusion, but you know, the one she was in love with in the miniseries to begin with was the guy she saw having sex with someone else, who refused to tell her he loved her, and who reacted to the "I'm a Cylon and I just used you to wipe out humanity" news with "I need a lawyer!", so I don't think so. I also think her presence will shake him out of his stupor, that he'll try to become someone she can respect. I don't think this will benefit humanity, though. He didn't exactly have a choice about a surrender - as Doral points out - any more than Adar did in the miniseries, but I think he will now be the deliberate tool of the Cylons in remaining in government.
Sidenote: I've seen comparisons to the Vichy government, both in reviews and by Moore in an interview, and am not sure how I feel about that, simply because if it's a strict analogy, then it feels like a step back as far as the Cylons are concerned, as well as a very black and white situation - heroic resistance (led by Kara, Tigh et al) versus Baltar plus Cylons as the embodiment of evil. Something more interesting and more difficult would be a Cylon occupation that takes away human freedom but actually offers a good goverment in terms of provisions with food, genuine buildings, a good economy etc., because that would ask the trickier question of the first Matrix movie. Would you take a miserable free and hunted existence over a cozy, nice and completely unfree one? It's easy to rebel if the occupying force puts a part of the population in camps, and not so much if it doesn't.
(Also, I'm having bad Trek flashbacks, to The Killing Game on Voyager and the Enterprise eps at the start of season 4. On the other hand, the only Trek which did good with WWII era and Nazi analogies was DS9, so maybe I should be optimistic in that regard.)
Lastly: Tyrol and Cally. This works for me if he feels so guilty about what happened when she woke up him up from his nightmare that after her confession of her feelings, he can't do anything but get together with her. Otherwise I'd still have a problem with the whole Cally-murdering-Boomer thing. However, I'm thoroughly enamored by the idea of Tyrol-as-union leader.
Which, however, begs the question: where is Tom Zarek? He wasn't at Baltar's swearing-in, either, so I have the ugly suspicion that he might have been on Cloud Nine when Gina blew it up. Please, say it ain't so. I don't care whether he starts the next season making another uneasy alliance with Roslin for the new Resistance or deciding to collaborate with Baltar and the Cylons, but be there he must.
