BSG 3.15 A Day in the Life

[selenak]

Now that's how you do a character centric episode.



Adama got written a bit uneven this season, though by no means as much as his son, but here, it really all came together, and felt much more natural than the previous Adama-centric episode, Hero. What's more, everyone else in this episode was in character, too, and it tied to previous events we actually had seen, as opposed to last week's Helocity. So, Bill Adama, man of responsibility and broken marriage, who'd have thought you have things in common with Gaius Baltar? You should talk with your current trial-awaiting prisoner about blonde women living in your head and projection, you know. He could tell you a thing or two on the subject.

Seriously: I like that they made the issue of Adama's marriage more complicated than "he wasn't there, so they drifted apart, and Zack's death finished it off" which was what most of us assumed ever post miniseries. (And btw, that many Zack references in a post season 1 episode have to be a record - it was always "sons" plural and "we" etc.) I also like that they didn't simply whitewash Adama out of all responsibility, either; the revelation that Carol Ann had moodswings, drank and lashed out at her nearest and dearest doesn't mean she didn't have a point about him safewalling and deliberately distancing himself when things get emotionally intense - we've seen him do that over and over, and he does it again with Roslin in this episode. Moreover, it certainly doesn't excuse Papadama wasn't around for the kids, just enough to give them a "must impress Dad by becoming a pilot" complex.

So intriguing subtexts opening up with the fleshing out of Carol Ann we have now. For one thing, to point out the glaringly obvious, Starbuck. So both Lee and Zack fell for a younger version of their mother. (Which makes Lee/Kara, not Lee/Laura the oedipal 'ship, as Laura is completely different from Carol Ann.) What this says about Bill Adama first adopting Kara as the daughter he never had and then basically dropping her as soon as she got too much like his late wife, I don't know.

And then we have my favourite Albee couple, the Tighs. My, but the animosity between Bill and Ellen also gained another dimension, beyond "she's not good enough for him/ Saul is MINE", doesn't it? Because Ellen, hard-drinking, sleeping around Ellen, remained with Saul through thick and thin, whereas emotionally messy, hard-drinking Carol Ann and Bill got divorced. Bill stonewalled, went distant; Saul was an alcoholic and let her in, again and again. But he had her, and he kept her. Hmmmmm. I smell fanfiction.

Another delight of this episode: the return of Lee Adama as a character who, gasp, is used in a non-romantic plot. Loved it. My problems with Lee really started post Resurrection Ship, and I don't think the fact that was when they started to write him increasingly just in "relationship" scenes was unrelated to that. So, now we have Lee and his father having scenes where neither is a jackass and wherein we learn some interesting new bit of backstory, and we have Lee being set up for a juicy ethics involving plot, and we have Laura making an observation about him which sums up what used to make Lee such a good character back in season 1 and the first half of season 2 - that he doesn't just know the laws but the difference between right and wrong.

BTW, typically this translated to Adama, when repeating the comment to Lee, as "she trusts you". Which isn't the same thing at all, but therein lies the difference between Bill and Laura (and now flash back to their reactions at the end of Bastille Day - Adama thinks this was about Lee choosing sides, Laura knows it was about the principle of the thing).

The Cally and Tyrol subplot was okay and didn't take up more airtime than it should have. I've always been uncomfortable with their marriage, because between her murdering Boomer and him apparantly proposing out of guilt about his waking-up freakout where he punched her, it always felt wrong to me, and not in the interesting sense. Which is why the acknowledgement of problems in the marriage makes sense. Mind you, I'm not sure where adding more guilt on Chief's shoulders is going to help - now he also blames himself for her being blind. (She is, right? That's what the last scene with them was meant to indicate?)

So, a good episode, which I really enjoyed. But next week I want more on the Baltar's trial plot, please.

Comments

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

(Which makes Lee/Kara, not Lee/Laura the oedipal 'ship, as Laura is completely different from Carol Ann.)

Hahaaha! I didn't love this episode, but I love your brain enough to make up for it. (Is possible I've been toyiing with Scott Summers fic where he realizes that he loved his first wife, the Jean-clone, not because she was like Jean -- which, personality-wise, she wasn't --but because she was like his dead mother). *uses my not-quite-incest icon*

Personally, I thought there was a little too much out of nowhere backstory, and that there was too much similarity to the the "Black Market" flashbacks + the Gaius/Six story so it just felt like recycling. (Though it did give me the chance, while on AIM with inlovewthnight as I watched this episode to demand whether that was the same blonde from Lee's flashbacks). The most positive thing here is setting up the trial to FINALLY happen, and the hints that they're rememebering Lee's charactreization from the mini and early in the series. I did, mostly, like the Lee + Bill scenes, and especially the way that he went into hardass mode with the pilots once he realized his father was there.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

See, I thought it was completely different from Black Market, because the Lee/pregnant woman story had no earlier indication and did come out of nowhere, whereas we've seen Adama's past marriage referenced to as less than ideal in the miniseries, in You can't go home again (during the Zack's burial flashback when he and the wife stand on opposite sides of the grave) and during the Tigh flashbacks early in s2 when he talks about being back in the fleet due to "the wife". Also, it made complete sense with established canon. So, Black Market? No. Or rather, Black Market done right.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

(She is, right? That's what the last scene with them was meant to indicate?)

I thought it just reticence myself. But otherwise word. The Starbuck thing, expecially, was glaring and revealatory all at the same time.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Clearly, Bill & Carol Ann are what would happen with Lee had married Kara! *veg*

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

Bill stonewalled, went distant; Saul was an alcoholic and let her in, again and again. But he had her, and he kept her. Hmmmmm. I smell fanfiction.

Yes. This is what I was thinking the entire episode and how everyone that Adama really loves is an alcoholic.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

So true. So, does he have a type or does he make them that way? No, I'm being unfair, Saul we know drank before meeting Bill.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

Briefly, in defense of Adama: while it may very well be that he has a type, I think it also equally likely that there's a lot of addiction problems in their generation thanks to Cylon War 1, which was purportedly even less pretty than this one.