BSG 3.12, Rapture
Jan. 23rd, 2007 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakPatience so pays of.
Firstly, I had been wondering about what would happen if Sharon Agathon died and downloaded back on New Caprica. Her doing it deliberately in order to see her daughter made so much sense. It's also a very Cylon thing to do, not something a human would think of - see Helo wanting to hijack a viper/raptor to do the same thing, and you know what's most interesting, especially in view of another subplot? Sharon A., Athena, never seems to believe she'll be boxed. That she'll wake up only to find herself imprisoned in eternity, no help to her daughter at all. No, she counts on the fact that whether her (former? present but said goodbye to?) people accept her back or not, they won't do this to her, and what's more, that they won't also take the alternate route which Adama back on Galactica suspects they might take, i.e. interrogate Sharon about what she knows of Galactica. No, Sharon believes, and is proven right, that they will let her see her daughter first thing.
Meanwhile, the suspicion from Eye of Jupiter that Sharon Valerii, aka Boomer, is left with an incredible bitterness is verified. Makes sense if you think about it. She can't go back to the humans she once thought herself of belonging to, even if she wanted to. New Caprica, aka the idea of Cylon/human union, turned into an incredible travesty of same. So what's left? Being a Cylon, and she can't be that in the way the other Cylons who never believed themselves humans to begin with are, either. She could have been a replacement mother for Hera, but seeing the child not react to her but react to Sharon A. has to be the ultimate rejection. Her reaction when Sharon A. says "you still care for Adama and Tyrol" being a case in point. And then you have the oh so ironical scene echoing and contrasting both miniseries and Downloaded, when Sharon V. in the equivalent of a Cylon breakdown threatens to snap the baby's neck and Caprica Six solves the situation by taking out Sharon V. the way she did Three and that human baby, a long time ago (i.e. first knock her down - Three, then twist her neck - baby). For those of us keeping score, tha's Caprica Six taking her part in saving Hera, the shape of things to come, as well. (Gaius - twice; Caprica - once; Three - once.) And now Caprica is on Galatica as well. (I do hope Baltar didn't tell her about Gina, because the memory of what was done to the last Six model in human custory is something I'd rather see her without.) Which makes me very happy, as Tricia Helfer has been underused in the first part of the season. Though the reason was what I guessed it was, i.e. the storyline given to Three/D'anna could not have been given to Six as it ended with Three being boxed.
I wasn't surprised that we weren't shown the face Three sees, but I'm 100% sure it wasn't Baltar's. My money is on grown up Hera, with the final five Cylons being not current day Cylon models, but the next generation, human/Cylon hybrids, with Hera as the first. Three both getting her revelation and then suffering the fate she once threatened Sharon V. and Caprica Six with, being boxed, and not just this particular D'anna but all the Three model, has a mythic grandeur - to see the face of God at the price of living in hell. (It's also very practical for the producers; they can bring back Lucy Lawless if they want to or if a Three model is needed at some point, as the Threes are boxed, not destroyed, but they don't have to, and they don't have to explain what they've been doing in the meantime, either.) It also makes sense that the other Cylons make that decision about the Threes but not the Eights, with the reason illustrated in the Three on board the basestar going against the common decision in order to let the Three on the raider land and have her revelation. Which means all the Threes consider themselves more important than the others, wheres the decisions of Sharon A. and Sharon V. were independent from what the other Eights were thinking and acting.
Baltar didn't have much to do in this one, and as I had guessed he'd be back on Galactica at the conclusion of this two-parter, I'm not surprised. I'm pleased, though, that the interpretation I had of his decision on the basestar was shown to be correct - it wasn't a choice of Three over Six, it was a choice of whoever had the answer he was looking for above everyone else. Doesn't mean, btw, I think Caprica should forgive him any time soon, but that's okay. I'm really looking forward to their first interaction now they're both prisoners.
Next week's episode, otoh, looks pretty Baltar-centric, and Roslin-centric, and both prospects make me happy. Roslin wanting to see Baltar airlocked is no surprise, and here's the thing: it puts her in exactly the position certain other people were in Collaborators. Because if it was wrong, as she said then, to do this to the various people the Circle executed without a trial, it is wrong to do it to Baltar. However, Roslin hadn't known the various people - safe Gaeta - who had been targeted by the Circle. She does know Baltar. It's personal to her in a way it wasn't with anyone else. And I do love storylines where the moral certainty of characters I'm fond of is examined and shaken. As for Gaius B., the irony is that some of the things he'll get accused of, he actually has a reasonable "lessening circumstance" excuse of sorts; surrendering to the Cylons, for example, because frankly, even if it had been Laura herself in the presidential chair, she couldn't have done anything else. (She would have gone underground and started a resistence next, thing, of course, but that's another matter.) And we saw, though the humans did not, that he was forced to sign the execution order at gun point, after repeatedly saying no and watching Caprica shot in front of him by Doral because of that. (Incidentally, the only witness for part of that currently available is Caprica, and even if her understandable anger at him choosing his destiny over her lets her testify, who'll believe her?) Other crimes of his, like his original crime of negligence which resulted in Caprica Six getting the defense codes, is known only to her as well. (Roslin guesses but can't prove it.) Still, about 99% of the population will agree with Roslin and want to see him dead without a trial. As for who might be that 1% arguing that everyone, even and including and especially collaborator in chief Gaius Baltar deserves a trial? That's the one thing of the rest of the season I'm spoiled for, so I can't speculate about it, alas. Nor will I tell. But it makes me happy.
Lastly: my theory that as long as Kara and Lee are away from each other, even the love quadrangle is better, seems to uphold. Really liked Kara's scene with Dee, and thanks, producers, for remembering Kara loving Sam Anders is actually a big deal to her and that he's more than a marriage of convenience. Kara putting her feelings for Sam and Lee in exactly the same way, making no difference between them, is far more interesting than the Twu Wuv thing which Unfinished Business threatened to tell us. And Dee was just fab, down to the slap, because it was really a slap to keep Kara awake, not something delivered with the force of anger which she must have been feeling. A professional to the end, is Dualla.
ETA: were there two previews? Because upon checking everyone else's reviews, I saw a lot of complaints about next week's preview being K/L, all the time, and they weren't even in the one I saw (which was all Baltar, all Roslin, all trial versus airlock all the time)...
Firstly, I had been wondering about what would happen if Sharon Agathon died and downloaded back on New Caprica. Her doing it deliberately in order to see her daughter made so much sense. It's also a very Cylon thing to do, not something a human would think of - see Helo wanting to hijack a viper/raptor to do the same thing, and you know what's most interesting, especially in view of another subplot? Sharon A., Athena, never seems to believe she'll be boxed. That she'll wake up only to find herself imprisoned in eternity, no help to her daughter at all. No, she counts on the fact that whether her (former? present but said goodbye to?) people accept her back or not, they won't do this to her, and what's more, that they won't also take the alternate route which Adama back on Galactica suspects they might take, i.e. interrogate Sharon about what she knows of Galactica. No, Sharon believes, and is proven right, that they will let her see her daughter first thing.
Meanwhile, the suspicion from Eye of Jupiter that Sharon Valerii, aka Boomer, is left with an incredible bitterness is verified. Makes sense if you think about it. She can't go back to the humans she once thought herself of belonging to, even if she wanted to. New Caprica, aka the idea of Cylon/human union, turned into an incredible travesty of same. So what's left? Being a Cylon, and she can't be that in the way the other Cylons who never believed themselves humans to begin with are, either. She could have been a replacement mother for Hera, but seeing the child not react to her but react to Sharon A. has to be the ultimate rejection. Her reaction when Sharon A. says "you still care for Adama and Tyrol" being a case in point. And then you have the oh so ironical scene echoing and contrasting both miniseries and Downloaded, when Sharon V. in the equivalent of a Cylon breakdown threatens to snap the baby's neck and Caprica Six solves the situation by taking out Sharon V. the way she did Three and that human baby, a long time ago (i.e. first knock her down - Three, then twist her neck - baby). For those of us keeping score, tha's Caprica Six taking her part in saving Hera, the shape of things to come, as well. (Gaius - twice; Caprica - once; Three - once.) And now Caprica is on Galatica as well. (I do hope Baltar didn't tell her about Gina, because the memory of what was done to the last Six model in human custory is something I'd rather see her without.) Which makes me very happy, as Tricia Helfer has been underused in the first part of the season. Though the reason was what I guessed it was, i.e. the storyline given to Three/D'anna could not have been given to Six as it ended with Three being boxed.
I wasn't surprised that we weren't shown the face Three sees, but I'm 100% sure it wasn't Baltar's. My money is on grown up Hera, with the final five Cylons being not current day Cylon models, but the next generation, human/Cylon hybrids, with Hera as the first. Three both getting her revelation and then suffering the fate she once threatened Sharon V. and Caprica Six with, being boxed, and not just this particular D'anna but all the Three model, has a mythic grandeur - to see the face of God at the price of living in hell. (It's also very practical for the producers; they can bring back Lucy Lawless if they want to or if a Three model is needed at some point, as the Threes are boxed, not destroyed, but they don't have to, and they don't have to explain what they've been doing in the meantime, either.) It also makes sense that the other Cylons make that decision about the Threes but not the Eights, with the reason illustrated in the Three on board the basestar going against the common decision in order to let the Three on the raider land and have her revelation. Which means all the Threes consider themselves more important than the others, wheres the decisions of Sharon A. and Sharon V. were independent from what the other Eights were thinking and acting.
Baltar didn't have much to do in this one, and as I had guessed he'd be back on Galactica at the conclusion of this two-parter, I'm not surprised. I'm pleased, though, that the interpretation I had of his decision on the basestar was shown to be correct - it wasn't a choice of Three over Six, it was a choice of whoever had the answer he was looking for above everyone else. Doesn't mean, btw, I think Caprica should forgive him any time soon, but that's okay. I'm really looking forward to their first interaction now they're both prisoners.
Next week's episode, otoh, looks pretty Baltar-centric, and Roslin-centric, and both prospects make me happy. Roslin wanting to see Baltar airlocked is no surprise, and here's the thing: it puts her in exactly the position certain other people were in Collaborators. Because if it was wrong, as she said then, to do this to the various people the Circle executed without a trial, it is wrong to do it to Baltar. However, Roslin hadn't known the various people - safe Gaeta - who had been targeted by the Circle. She does know Baltar. It's personal to her in a way it wasn't with anyone else. And I do love storylines where the moral certainty of characters I'm fond of is examined and shaken. As for Gaius B., the irony is that some of the things he'll get accused of, he actually has a reasonable "lessening circumstance" excuse of sorts; surrendering to the Cylons, for example, because frankly, even if it had been Laura herself in the presidential chair, she couldn't have done anything else. (She would have gone underground and started a resistence next, thing, of course, but that's another matter.) And we saw, though the humans did not, that he was forced to sign the execution order at gun point, after repeatedly saying no and watching Caprica shot in front of him by Doral because of that. (Incidentally, the only witness for part of that currently available is Caprica, and even if her understandable anger at him choosing his destiny over her lets her testify, who'll believe her?) Other crimes of his, like his original crime of negligence which resulted in Caprica Six getting the defense codes, is known only to her as well. (Roslin guesses but can't prove it.) Still, about 99% of the population will agree with Roslin and want to see him dead without a trial. As for who might be that 1% arguing that everyone, even and including and especially collaborator in chief Gaius Baltar deserves a trial? That's the one thing of the rest of the season I'm spoiled for, so I can't speculate about it, alas. Nor will I tell. But it makes me happy.
Lastly: my theory that as long as Kara and Lee are away from each other, even the love quadrangle is better, seems to uphold. Really liked Kara's scene with Dee, and thanks, producers, for remembering Kara loving Sam Anders is actually a big deal to her and that he's more than a marriage of convenience. Kara putting her feelings for Sam and Lee in exactly the same way, making no difference between them, is far more interesting than the Twu Wuv thing which Unfinished Business threatened to tell us. And Dee was just fab, down to the slap, because it was really a slap to keep Kara awake, not something delivered with the force of anger which she must have been feeling. A professional to the end, is Dualla.
ETA: were there two previews? Because upon checking everyone else's reviews, I saw a lot of complaints about next week's preview being K/L, all the time, and they weren't even in the one I saw (which was all Baltar, all Roslin, all trial versus airlock all the time)...
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 04:59 pm (UTC)I enjoyed reading your views on this ep. I loved Rapture and you've put a great deal of what I loved about it into words. thank you for sharing! :)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 05:54 pm (UTC)So we've been spared the very K/L preview that everybody else is probably seeing, though I actually liked the way the "love rhombus" was handled in this episode, so I'm hopeful. But yeah, the next ep will and should be Baltar v. Roslin.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 07:22 pm (UTC)Do have a question though - what did you think of the final scene with Helo and Kara - where they look at the eye of Jupiter and discover that the picture they found on the planet is exactly the same as the picture Starbuck was obsessed with painting and drawing in her room in Caprica, prior to the nuclear destruction?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 05:28 am (UTC)Other than that, it was great that we got another reminder of the Kara-Helo friendship, because I treasure when characters (both Kara and Helo) aren't just defined through their romantic relationships...
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 06:31 am (UTC)D'Anna seemed to recognize at least one of the five..but I'm stumped as to who it might be. I'm pretty sure it's not Roslin, or Adama. In fact there's speculation that it could be Lee, but it seems to me unlikely that any of the characters who have a background that is pretty public and who have family could be Cylons.
I loved the scenes with Kara and Dee; so many fans seem to be of the "Dee is a bitch and why would she stay with Lee" ilk, but I have a real soft spot for her; she's in a tough spot, but I think she's responded pretty realistically. Her professionalism is there too, in her response to Lee's order to rescue Kara. Loved the little stay awake slap..
It was such a good episode. I saw the Canadian preview, which was mostly about Roslin and Baltar.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 03:37 pm (UTC)Kara as dying leader is an interesting alternative: it would make Kat's fate foreshadowing, and she - Kara, that is - has been connected to the search for Earth before, via finding the arrow. Plus back in season 1, Adama seemed to be grooming her to succeed him one day, though of course with everything that happened since he probably buried that idea...
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 12:53 am (UTC)I don't know. My quess is she is connected to them in some weird way.
As to the final five - they have to be amongst the 12. Why? Because that's what the show keeps saying. There are seven cylons on screen. But we know there are 12. So five are missing. The questions are why? who are they? But I think if you can answer the first question "why", the who is easier to answer.
Possible responses: because they aren't born yet? No, because the show tells us there are 12. It does not say there will be twelve. Although I guess they could wank that or retcon it at some point.
Because they don't have multiple copies? Possible. Since they do not say all twelve have multiple copies, just that there are multiple copies.
Three other interesting bits: Kat in PAssage is in trouble because she was a smuggler - Kara is upset with her not because she smuggled drugs, but anything that fit in the cargo.
"Who knows how many cylons you smuggled in?" In Black Market - there is evidence that kids are a commodity on the black market - have they always been one? (Granted the writers found this silly so it may be dropped.) In the opening episodes of season 3, Leoben introduces us to Cacy who turns out to be an abdcuted child.
So, if you were writing this serious and wanted to do the worste thing to your characters?
Make them the most miserable? What would further the plot and thread?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 12:55 am (UTC)About the Final Five
Date: 2007-01-24 09:31 am (UTC)but I'm 100% sure it wasn't Baltar's. My money is on grown up Hera, with the final five Cylons being not current day Cylon models, but the next generation, human/Cylon hybrids, with Hera as the first. Three both getting her revelation and then suffering the fate she once threatened Sharon V. and Caprica Six with, being boxed, and not just this particular D'anna but all the Three model, has a mythic grandeur - to see the face of God at the price of living in hell.
Did you know that D'Anna called Hera Thirteenth in the episode Roslin stole her (it was a cut scene that I saw on the DVD)? It could fit in your theory. The Final Five being actually 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 !
My problem here is. Would D'Anna be able to regonize grown-up Hera? Also why would she say "I had no idea" almost apologizing as if she had wronged the person in question? Hera has always been important for D'Anna Biers. On new Caprica she was the one seeking the Oracle woman and she took the baby from Baltar's hand. If it's Hera, her reaction doenst' make snese at all.
My new latest theory (I changed every day!) is that the one whom she talked to could be Six actually. Like in the British series the Prisoner. In the end Number One turned out to be Number Six!
Earlier D'Anna has disregarded Six as not being part of her destiny (hers and Blaltar's) ending their little Ménage à trois. How surprising would it be for her to see Six among the Final Five!
About the Final Five
Date: 2007-01-24 07:42 pm (UTC)That depends on how you interpret the tone. I can certainly see it as an apology for having wronged the person in question, in which case your Six theory makes great sense and is really cool. On the other hand, you can also read it as religious ecstasy, in the sense of "I had no idea - I thought I knew you were important, but I had no idea it would be like this". Whatever it is D'Anna feels, it survives her download and rebirth and is enough to make her take the "sorry, you're boxed" news which certainly would qualify as the worst fate ever from a Cylon pov with perfect equanimity, no protest, no vengefulness. This makes me remember what the human oracle told her on New Caprica - that she would experience love utterly and completely when she holds Hera in her arms. We thought this was fulfilled when Gaius hands her over at the end of the episode, but while this has a definite impact on D'Anna, it does not transform her in the same way. What if that first contact with Hera was just foreshadowing, and the moment of revelation/rapture, touching her vision of grown-up Hera/the shape of things to come (how does she know it is Hera? Well, you do, in visions) was what the oracle truly spoke of?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 04:20 pm (UTC)I like your theory that the final five are actually hybrids, not just the other five cylon models - my only concern is, just like on Buffy, are we overthinking the issue? Personally, I love all this discussion and mythology, I'm learning so much myself, but I have this feeling that it's going to end up a whole lot simpler than we're building it up to be... :S
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 07:46 pm (UTC)Might this lead to disappointment in the end in this particular case? Possibly. I've seen shows where the ways storylines ended up certainly frustrated and disappointed me. I've seen others where while my own theories were either more elaborate or off th emark, what I actually got from the show was extremely interesting and captivating as well. No way of telling where BSG is going to end up...
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 12:53 am (UTC)I just love how everyone can come away with such differing viewpoints and opinions, from the same basic material. Then we run with it, going off an a gazillion tangents, each trying to figure out this puzzle that's so tantalisingly laid out in front of us...
Damn you Ron Moore!
PS: I've been going over the Ron seasons of DS9, trying to see if any more of that show's core ideas and themes have been transferred over to BSG, and whether or not that could help in solving the riddles... So far nothing :(
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 05:18 am (UTC)DS9: actually, I have an entire post somewhere written after BSG's first season of how Laura Roslin's storyarc mirrors Benjamin Sisko's (and how the audience responses to both are telling about gender perceptions). On another level, you could say Laura is Winn if Winn were written as the heroine instead of the villain.
Aside from the way religion and politics intermingle, other important elements I consider a direct heritage from DS9 are the way DS9 handled the Dominion war and how it pushed the characters to their edges (if you think the humans intending to use a genocidal virus on the Cylons is new, well, check on the Federation turning out to have done just that to the Founders on DS9), sexuality not limited to the young and pretty (Mr. and Mrs. Tigh, meet Dukat & Winn), the salt of the earth everyman engineer who gets put through hell on a regular basis (Chief Tyrol is a direct descendant of Miles O'Brien), etc., etc.
Riddle solving based on this, though: the only way I can see is that what ultimately ended the war with the Founders and ended it the way it did (as opposed to the Jem'Hadar turning kamikaze on the universe, etc.) was, literary, union, Odo joining with the Female Founder, healing her after Bashir had healed him and returning to his people to heal them while she gave herself up to for a life (and Founders life for millennia) in prison for war crimes. Meaning: I'm pretty sure BSG won't end with the humans finding earth, the Cylons too and the humans wiping out the Cylons in one desperate stroke, but in some kind of transfer-symbiosis. If Hera is the shape of things to come, the solution would be indeed to give them both shared descendants; think of the D'Anna/Baltar conversation back in Exodus when she said even if they did leave, wouldn't the humans now want revenge and hunt them down again, and he said the cycle had to stop somewhere? If the children aren't children of either race but of both, it just might...