BSG 4.12 A Disquiet Follows My Soul
Jan. 24th, 2009 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which we get some good character scenes, one retcon and political developments.
Among other things, this episode illustrates yet another reason why I can't ship Adama/Roslin. They don't balance each other, they enable each other, and not each other's good sides, either. I mean, it's not that I find it disbelievable that Laura finally had a breakdown. If she ever was going to, it would be after finding Earth a wasteland. But what she needs right now isn't someone who cuddles her but someone who does for her exactly what she did for both Adamas in mid-season 1 when Starbuck went missing - shame her into pulling herself together. Because what she does while understandable is completely irresponsible and incredibly dangerous. Basically, she acts EXACTLY like Baltar did during his short presidency - respond to the whole miserable situation with a mixture of depression, self-loathing and complete hedonism. One of the things that most infuriated Roslin about Baltar before she finally got confirmation about his role in the original Cylon attack was that he didn't live up to the responsibility he had for his people. (Remember her yelling "your people" in the torture episode?) Now she doesn't, either. Her dream sequences in the first half of this season among other things revealed Laura's moral standard has become "well, at least I'm way better than Baltar" . If Gaius Baltar is the standard to measure your moral superiority against, you're in trouble, and if even that doesn't work anymore...
Speaking of Baltar, though: see, this is why I continue to love this show. After the last episode visualized Roslin's breaking with her faith with the burning of the prophecies, played out as stark tragedy, this week we got the flipside scene, as is often the case when Laura and Gaius are paralleled and contrasted, by Baltar discovering the angry-and-dissappointed-railing-against-God side of faith in a scene that of course is played out as dark comedy. Don't worry, Gaius, it happens to all of us, and even C.S. Lewis called God a vivisectionist in an immediate post-death-of-wife outburst. Note that Baltar isn't rediscovering the atheism from which he started, no, he's all J'Accuse towards God and wants an explanation for this less than stellar outcome of all the visions and prophecies. Which is as self-centered as what Roslin and Adama are doing, but I can't help myself, I'm still having that double standard going.
Adama, while at least having an eye on the big picture this week, still continues to make no pretense at respecting democracy. See, if Laura is incapable of executing her office, and in her current state she evidently is, then either let the only elected official around here, which would be Zarek, take over, or if you really think that would lead to doom for the fleet, continue with the oligarchic solution you had the last time, i.e. Lee as appointed and not elected interim President. Lee being the only one who points out that yes, using Cylon tech and continuing the alliance does make sense, but THEY HAVE TO SELL IT to the fleet. Have to explain the why's and wherefore's instead of just working on the "oh, surely they'll see that Adama Knows Best" principle. But nooooo, Adama can't be bothered with that one. But then, he's given up to pretend this isn't a military dictatorship since season 3.
Stellar illustration of Bill Adama's complete inabiliity at empathy and imagination: he has come to terms with the fact his best friend is a Cylon, so clearly everyone else should. He has come to terms with the fact they need the Cylons to survive, so why should anyone else have a problem? This leads to the curious circumstance that while I'm totally on board with the Cylon alliance myself (not surprising, given that most of my favourite characters are Cylons) from a political pov, from a personal pov I'm sympathizing way more with Gaeta and Zarek than with Bill Adama. Even without the webisodes, it's more than understandable why Gaeta, after all that happened (and the scene with Starbuck was a great reminder for the audience, as well as working in terms of both characters and being a perfect mirror/contrast to the Kara and Gaeta lunch scene from Collaborators, finally had it with the Admiral. And why should he have faith in Roslin? She's failing her office most shamefully right now. As for Zarek, I could have done without Adama's successful corruption bluff because that smacked a bit too much of a plot device to ensure Adama looks better in the cell scene, but I'm glad he finally got scenes longer than one or two lines, and like Gaeta gets to make some good points, too. Because to repeat the above - neither Adama nor the AVOWL Laura has bothered to win support for the Cylon alliance, which of course is incredibly difficult to accept if all your experiences with Cylons were negative. (Which is true for Zarek, who spent most of the New Caprica occupation imprisoned in addition to having the usual fleet experience of being a part of hunted humanity.) Add to this the way Adama (and Tigh) completely disregarded the presidential succession when Roslin disappeared a few episodes back, illustrating that the legitimate way to achieve power isn't worth squat, and the fact Zarek never stopped being ambitious and it would be utterly ooc if he wouldn't finally use his opportunity. In short: Revolution? They so had it coming. Have they ever.
Meanwhile, we get a retcon to ensure Hera is still the only Cylon/Human hybrid. Cally/Hotdog doesn't make much sense, though given that her marriage with Tyrol happened on very short notice - i.e. Tyrol never showed any kind of romantic interest in her (as opposed to friendship, he had treated her as one of his "kids" in the mechanics crew from the start, while her crush on him was evident from at least the start of s2 onwards) until she woke him up from his nightmare and he beat her, which made the marriage look like a big gesture of atonment - I could see her having a casual relationship with someone else until that nightmare/violence event suddenly changed everything. However, knowing that Nicky isn't Tyrol's son makes nonsense of a crucial motivation in her big depression after finding out Tyrol was a Cylon. Bah. On the other hand, Tyrol drafting Hotdog to take turns in watching Nicky was great to see.
Speaking of children: the knowledge that Ellen, as a Cylon, must still be somewhere seems to have cheered up Tigh to no end. He's not-self loathing and downright nice (for Tigh) with Caprica, whose joy in being pregnant was a little heartbreaking, given I'm still afraid it can't end well. (Unless my crack theory is true and her foetus is actually Ellen waiting to be reborn.) Important point about what this means for the Cylons, though, and the fact it chilled the nurse was effectively conveying how your avarage colonial has to feel about the prospect of Cylons as a people. Again, massive failure on the part of Adama and Roslin in not promoting the alliance properly and give the people a chance to voice their grievances and to get to know the rebel Cylons instead of being dictated, which has to bring back New Caprica memories...
ETA: BSG composer Bear McCreary's blog has some really interesting stuff about this episode, including the fact Tom Zarek gets his own musical theme there, and some good quotes from Richard Hatch and Alessandro Juliani.
Among other things, this episode illustrates yet another reason why I can't ship Adama/Roslin. They don't balance each other, they enable each other, and not each other's good sides, either. I mean, it's not that I find it disbelievable that Laura finally had a breakdown. If she ever was going to, it would be after finding Earth a wasteland. But what she needs right now isn't someone who cuddles her but someone who does for her exactly what she did for both Adamas in mid-season 1 when Starbuck went missing - shame her into pulling herself together. Because what she does while understandable is completely irresponsible and incredibly dangerous. Basically, she acts EXACTLY like Baltar did during his short presidency - respond to the whole miserable situation with a mixture of depression, self-loathing and complete hedonism. One of the things that most infuriated Roslin about Baltar before she finally got confirmation about his role in the original Cylon attack was that he didn't live up to the responsibility he had for his people. (Remember her yelling "your people" in the torture episode?) Now she doesn't, either. Her dream sequences in the first half of this season among other things revealed Laura's moral standard has become "well, at least I'm way better than Baltar" . If Gaius Baltar is the standard to measure your moral superiority against, you're in trouble, and if even that doesn't work anymore...
Speaking of Baltar, though: see, this is why I continue to love this show. After the last episode visualized Roslin's breaking with her faith with the burning of the prophecies, played out as stark tragedy, this week we got the flipside scene, as is often the case when Laura and Gaius are paralleled and contrasted, by Baltar discovering the angry-and-dissappointed-railing-against-God side of faith in a scene that of course is played out as dark comedy. Don't worry, Gaius, it happens to all of us, and even C.S. Lewis called God a vivisectionist in an immediate post-death-of-wife outburst. Note that Baltar isn't rediscovering the atheism from which he started, no, he's all J'Accuse towards God and wants an explanation for this less than stellar outcome of all the visions and prophecies. Which is as self-centered as what Roslin and Adama are doing, but I can't help myself, I'm still having that double standard going.
Adama, while at least having an eye on the big picture this week, still continues to make no pretense at respecting democracy. See, if Laura is incapable of executing her office, and in her current state she evidently is, then either let the only elected official around here, which would be Zarek, take over, or if you really think that would lead to doom for the fleet, continue with the oligarchic solution you had the last time, i.e. Lee as appointed and not elected interim President. Lee being the only one who points out that yes, using Cylon tech and continuing the alliance does make sense, but THEY HAVE TO SELL IT to the fleet. Have to explain the why's and wherefore's instead of just working on the "oh, surely they'll see that Adama Knows Best" principle. But nooooo, Adama can't be bothered with that one. But then, he's given up to pretend this isn't a military dictatorship since season 3.
Stellar illustration of Bill Adama's complete inabiliity at empathy and imagination: he has come to terms with the fact his best friend is a Cylon, so clearly everyone else should. He has come to terms with the fact they need the Cylons to survive, so why should anyone else have a problem? This leads to the curious circumstance that while I'm totally on board with the Cylon alliance myself (not surprising, given that most of my favourite characters are Cylons) from a political pov, from a personal pov I'm sympathizing way more with Gaeta and Zarek than with Bill Adama. Even without the webisodes, it's more than understandable why Gaeta, after all that happened (and the scene with Starbuck was a great reminder for the audience, as well as working in terms of both characters and being a perfect mirror/contrast to the Kara and Gaeta lunch scene from Collaborators, finally had it with the Admiral. And why should he have faith in Roslin? She's failing her office most shamefully right now. As for Zarek, I could have done without Adama's successful corruption bluff because that smacked a bit too much of a plot device to ensure Adama looks better in the cell scene, but I'm glad he finally got scenes longer than one or two lines, and like Gaeta gets to make some good points, too. Because to repeat the above - neither Adama nor the AVOWL Laura has bothered to win support for the Cylon alliance, which of course is incredibly difficult to accept if all your experiences with Cylons were negative. (Which is true for Zarek, who spent most of the New Caprica occupation imprisoned in addition to having the usual fleet experience of being a part of hunted humanity.) Add to this the way Adama (and Tigh) completely disregarded the presidential succession when Roslin disappeared a few episodes back, illustrating that the legitimate way to achieve power isn't worth squat, and the fact Zarek never stopped being ambitious and it would be utterly ooc if he wouldn't finally use his opportunity. In short: Revolution? They so had it coming. Have they ever.
Meanwhile, we get a retcon to ensure Hera is still the only Cylon/Human hybrid. Cally/Hotdog doesn't make much sense, though given that her marriage with Tyrol happened on very short notice - i.e. Tyrol never showed any kind of romantic interest in her (as opposed to friendship, he had treated her as one of his "kids" in the mechanics crew from the start, while her crush on him was evident from at least the start of s2 onwards) until she woke him up from his nightmare and he beat her, which made the marriage look like a big gesture of atonment - I could see her having a casual relationship with someone else until that nightmare/violence event suddenly changed everything. However, knowing that Nicky isn't Tyrol's son makes nonsense of a crucial motivation in her big depression after finding out Tyrol was a Cylon. Bah. On the other hand, Tyrol drafting Hotdog to take turns in watching Nicky was great to see.
Speaking of children: the knowledge that Ellen, as a Cylon, must still be somewhere seems to have cheered up Tigh to no end. He's not-self loathing and downright nice (for Tigh) with Caprica, whose joy in being pregnant was a little heartbreaking, given I'm still afraid it can't end well. (Unless my crack theory is true and her foetus is actually Ellen waiting to be reborn.) Important point about what this means for the Cylons, though, and the fact it chilled the nurse was effectively conveying how your avarage colonial has to feel about the prospect of Cylons as a people. Again, massive failure on the part of Adama and Roslin in not promoting the alliance properly and give the people a chance to voice their grievances and to get to know the rebel Cylons instead of being dictated, which has to bring back New Caprica memories...
ETA: BSG composer Bear McCreary's blog has some really interesting stuff about this episode, including the fact Tom Zarek gets his own musical theme there, and some good quotes from Richard Hatch and Alessandro Juliani.
