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You know, I figured all was not well when
Doctor Simon finished up a GYN exam by exhorting Kara
-- Viper pilot, sharpshooter, card-playing, stogie-sucking
Starbuck -- to think that her most important "skill"
was childbearing, but I didn't think the Cylons watched
The X-Files. Creepy in the overall plot but just
a little derivative in the execution.
I expected that Kara was going to nail
the Triad captain, but I don't mind. He's way better
for her than Baltar (ew!) could ever be, and so far
we don't have any reason to question his motives. Her
strangely powerful and sudden attachment to him was
odd -- shell shock, maybe?
I am still not sold on Caprica Sharon's
loyalty to the Colonials. No matter how much she helped
Helo, she still thinks like a Cylon. While explaining
the breeding program, she says, in a petulant and aggrieved
tone as though Kara were being very ungrateful, "You
know, if you agreed to bear children, it would
be voluntary. Maybe we'd even set you up with someone
you like." Then Helo tries to explain that it's
actually about Love being the missing ingredient.
He's submitted to his fate because his emotions were
manipulated, and that somehow excuses what nearly happened
to Kara and did happen to Sushon. Women hooked up to
machinery to extract ovaries or to force pregnancies?
This isn't about procreation fulfilling a commandment,
this isn't about Love getting the Cylons closer to God,
it's about control and dominance. Fundamentalists are
the same the galaxy over, it seems.
And where was Sharon all that time? "Tracking
you" in what? Where's the Raider and why did she
steal it? Why was she tracking them? Why didn't she
offer help sooner if she cared that much? Was she reporting
their movements to others? Did Kara and Helo take her
back to the Colonials? (Well, we'll know that next week,
I assume.) Kara was looking oddly into the bushes --
what if that was Sharon who had started shooting at
them in the first place?
Okay, the high choral Enya-in-Lord
of the Rings-dirge singing during weird moments
is officially overused. Come up with some other background
music, please.
Simon is the fourth of the five human
Cylon models we've seen (Boomer, Doral, Leoben, Simon,
and Six; the centurions aren't really "human"
even if they're humanoid). There are two Simons who
were disciples of Jesus, one being Simon Peter (the
one who was crucified upside-down) and the other called
"Simon the Zealot," who was fiercely opposed
to Roman rule. Discuss amongst yourselves.
There were several times in the episode
when I was predicting lines or saying them simultaneously
-- "Let's get back to work" and "I love
my father," notably. I'm not sure if that's good
because the writers are saying the "right"
things, or bad because the show's getting predictable.
I am very disappointed that Tigh
doesn't seem to be headed for any kind of punishment
at all. He wasn't kidding when he said he fracked things
up badly. Adama thinks it's okay that Tigh declared
martial law? And dissolved the democratically
elected civilian government? And sent Marines out to
steal supplies? I can't believe Adama could have looked
over all those reports and think it was okay for Tigh
to do what he did. I'm not saying he should be removed
permanently, given that he has performed well in other
situations, but bad actions have consequences as well
as good ones.
I see the Quorum of Twelve isn't any less
a passel of indecisive self-serving bureaucrats than
they were on Classic BSG. Some things never change,
I suppose.
"Zeus has returned to Olympus,"
Zarek reports. A fitting and amusing double entendre,
fitting nicely into both Greek and Kobolian mythology....
OH! and speaking of Greek mythology, I
just uncovered another connection in a typo. I was writing
"Sharon" and it came up "Charon,"
who was the ferryman on the River Styx, who brought
the souls of the dead to Hades to be judged and either
rewarded or punished in the afterlife. Deliberate?
Lee is still his father's son, and good
for him. He's willing to confront his father, but not
to betray him. His love for Adama is too strong to step
over the line into political weaponry. They disagree
militarily, but it has nothing to do with their personal
relationship, and he can't bring himself to allowed
it to be used for tactical purposes. He has a quiet
spine. I commend him for that.
Well, Roslin "played the religious
card," and then objected when they expected her
to keep playing it. Elosha deftly pointed out that this
is not merely what they believe the gods chose for her,
but "the [path] you picked for yourself."
Now she's really stuck with it, so she'd better like
how it fits. She's clearly writhing to bestow "blessings"
on the inmates, but like a good politician, she sucks
it up and plays to her base.
Roslin and Adama continue to sail in opposite
directions. Roslin chooses to appeal to the masses on
religious grounds, which is pure emotion and faith over
reason and logic, while Adama insists that "nobody's
this stupid" to follow her fairytale crap. He cannot
fathom why anyone would put themselves in danger of
Cylon attack for a dusty prophecy. Roslin apparently
feels at least to some degree that the Scroll of Pythias
is really talking about her. She still respects him
-- "he's a tough old bird," she said with
an admiring smile upon hearing that he's back in command
-- but I don't think he respects her as much as he's
threatened by her. Wonder how they'll resolve this.
Cally and Baltar both got non-speaking
cameo flybys, I guess to make up for the several weeks
of airtime on Kobol. Baltar looks sulky that Adama doesn't
seem to have lifted martial law and restored his vice
presidency. Cally is just defiant.
Adama is apparently punishing himself
for not seeing that Sharon was a Cylon -- he gives Cally
a mere 30 days for unauthorized discharge of a weapon,
not a court-martial for murder -- but devastated at
Sharon's betrayal. He weeps over her corpse as we haven't
seen him ever cry in the series (granted, he's only
a few days out of surgery and things are rather stressful).
"Why?" he pleads with her, anguished.
He rails to Chief that she was a "living, vibrant
person," not a machine. How could they love a machine?
he asks. (The correct answer is, She lied, she lied
to everyone, she fooled everyone. Helo was right: they
loved what they thought she was.)
What was all that about Kara's broken
fingers? Groundwork for some future revelations where
we find out she was abused as a child? Or hurt herself
somehow? And why do the Cylons think she's special?
(Other than that she's in the credits, I mean.) What
"destiny" does their god have in mind for
her?
The GYN exam was downright ooky. It's
uncomfortable enough physically and mentally when you
know, like, and trust your doctor, but when it's a stranger
and someone whose species you're still not sure of --
brrr! Why on earth did she let him do that? The
chain-smoking doctor can't be that busy. What
could he have possibly told her to convince her to submit
to that exam? They obviously drugged her for surgery;
if they needed to poke around, why not do it while she
was out?
Does Kara have a tattoo of writing around
her right forearm? Looks vaguely like Sanskrit, but
I'm pretty sure that writes vertically like Chinese
and Japanese.
Simon's gentle but insistent pushing about
having babies is the same tone Caprica Sharon and Six
have been taking. You must breed, you must propagate,
we must have a child, this child is important, having
a child brings us closer to god... they are fanatics,
and we should not forget that.
I loved how Doctor Simon slipped up and
called her "Starbuck," and the only way the
audience is clued in that he just revealed himself is
a sudden close-up on Kara's face. She gives nothing
away, but that little bit of camera work -- no fanfares,
no gasps, no dramatic horns -- tells us everything.
They took an ovary sample from Kara? It
was hard to make out what Simon was muttering to Six.
Hubby thinks they impregnated her on the table.
So are the Sixes in charge of everything,
I guess? They seem to be the prime movers and shakers
behind any given plot.
What did Kara whisper in Sushon's ear?
A prayer? Last rites? A request for forgiveness?
Sharon says there are thousands of women
in the breeding farms. But on Caprica, aren't they all
dying of radiation poisoning? How are any of them going
to live long enough to bear children, let alone produce
anything healthy and viable?
Speaking of breeding, I wonder if Sharon,
the Cylon, is going to gestate at the same rate as a
human, or if her pregnancy will be artificially sped
up somehow for dramatic purposes.
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