Writers: David Weddle and Bradley Thompson
Grade: A-
I feel like this episode has almost become two different episodes in my mind. I was initially irritated because this slow episode just wasn’t what I wanted, especially after having been less than thrilled with the last couple of episodes. But after really thinking about it, this started to feel like such a rich episode, the way so many characters’ stories intertwined with one another. Sadly, my personal interpretation of the episode became tainted by Moore’s podcast commentary, and I’m having a hard time undoing the damage.
Amazingly, the Starbuck portion of the episode was actually much simpler than the Boomer/Galen/Athena/Helo/Hera portion (probably because one storyline involved Starbuck, Sam, and an imaginary man, and the other storyline involved that long list of characters, plus Roslin and Adama).
I immediately recognized that Hera had given Starbuck some kind of musical notation, not because of the tape of her father’s concert that Helo gave her in the same scene (Dreilide Thrace, Live at the Helice Opera House), but simply because one of the circles on the drawing wasn’t colored in. And they say video games never teach you anything…
The writers are pretty clearly intending for viewers to make the connection that Daniel is Kara’s father, so I really hope they’re not going to pull a “We never actually said Daniel is Kara's father, so surprise, he's not!" If the writers are throwing red herrings of that size at us this close to the end, well, they can kiss my ass. They have enough balls in the air without worrying about tossing the audience another curveball this close to the end of the series.
And was Starbuck actually talking to herself out loud for all to hear, or was the conversation with her father only in her head? Baltar could never really manage that… Was Daniel a projection like what we were seeing with Galen and Boomer, or was he more like a HeadCharacter ala Baltar? It seems more like the latter, simply because Kara was using her real surroundings for the “imaginary” encounter, but it’s definitely confused by the fact that Baltar and Six were seemingly incapable of having completely internal conversations with their HeadCharacters. Maybe Kara was, too, but even as fucked up and batty as the patrons of Joe’s Bar probably are by this point, it still seems odd that no one told her to shut the frak up.
I found the idea of Kara playing her father’s music for Sam both touching and interesting. We never had any indication that Sam was a musician until “Sometimes a Great Notion,” but it’s kind of cute that Kara unknowingly fell for a musician, especially the one who may very well have taught her father one very important piece of music. I’m assuming that Sam taught Daniel “All Along the Watchtower,” which Daniel taught to Kara and also somehow used to awaken the Final Five. I still refuse to believe that Sam wrote the song, though. Please don’t try to make me swallow that pill, show…
The fact that Sam is not simply dead indicates that he has some further role to play in the story. Tory (or an Eight?) mentioned the possibility of hooking Sam into the “data stream” on the Base Ship, and between that and the very Hybrid-esque “word salad” in “No Exit,” I’m wondering if Galactica is going to get its very own Hybrid or the Base Ship is going to get an additional one.
Other stuff happened in this episode, too. Tigh reinforced the weird connection between Sam and Liam when he talked about dead Liam’s eyes being wide open, just as Sam’s were in this episode. Adama continued to fade into the background. Tigh and Ellen seemingly failed to notice the possible connection between Starbuck and the song that awakened the Final Four.
As for the other big storyline in this episode…
So the Cylons wanted to try Boomer for treason because she sided with Cavil in the Cylon civil war? That just feels way too simple for such a complex situation. Considering that without Boomer, the vote was split evenly down the middle, it seems more like they want to try her for exercising free will and choosing to behave as an individual. We’ve seen so many other Sixes and Eights behaving as distinct individuals that it feels a little hypocritical to punish Boomer for choosing a different side, especially when it wasn’t Boomer or Cavil who chose to eliminate resurrection and push the Cylon race toward extinction. Not to mention that ALL the Colonial Cylons, not just one side or the other, had a hand in committing genocide on the entire human race. I don’t really agree with their reasoning at all.
Still, I can at least entertain the possibility that Roslin was right that refusing their request could endanger the alliance, though I also think she behaved horribly in this episode. It’s not the fact that Roslin signed the extradition papers that I have an issue with. It’s her attitude while doing so. All Galen wanted was for Roslin and Adama to not essentially sentence Boomer to death, and instead Roslin not only did exactly that, but deliberately and snottily called him “Chief,” with a nice long pause beforehand for emphasis. And this is the guy who saved all of them just a few episodes ago, with his bare and bloody hands (whether anyone actually knows this or not). Given how helpful he's been in the past, and how often he's been right (being part of the Resistance, the events of "Dirty Hands," and pretty much everything he did during the mutiny), he deserved better from her, even if Boomer didn't.
I don’t buy that there was so much of a rush to get it done that she couldn’t sit Galen down and have a talk with him. She could have taken the time ro treat Galen like the hurting being that he was. She could have tried to explain her reasoning to him a bit more clearly and calmly, tried to make him understand. She could have told him she’d think about it to give herself some time to work out how to reason with him, or even try to think of a different way of doing things. But she didn’t. If she’d actually attempted any of those things, a) I wouldn’t have been angry with her and would’ve felt more empathy when she collapsed, and b) Galen might not have been sent into spiraling panic mode.
We will never know for certain, but it’s possible that things might not have gone down so horribly if she’d actually done what Galen asked and left Boomer in the brig, or if she’d even just taken some time to reason with him. Granted Boomer ended up proving Roslin right, but at the same time, that’s partly because Roslin gave both Chief and Boomer the motivation. Would Boomer have done as she did if she’d been offered a chance to live quietly in the brig and talk to Chief every day? Her escape with Ellen was absolutely part of Cavil’s plan, but she may have chosen differently here if it hadn’t been made clear to her that she wasn’t going to be given any chance at redemption, or even just permanent incarceration.
I understand that Roslin is tired and frightened and feels death barreling down on her like a freight train, but she shot herself (and Chief, and the Agathons, and, well, pretty much everyone given that explosion at the end) in the foot by being stubborn and snotty and Madame-knows-best. I also couldn’t help but think of Lee, her successor, and the fact that Lee can actually call him “Galen.” Lee wasn’t physically in that scene, but the contrast between he and Roslin was there in spirit. I think Lee would have signed those papers, too, but he wouldn’t have been so cold about it.
Despite my anger at Roslin, there’s no doubt that Galen absolutely committed some egregious wrongs. I’m unclear on whether he killed the random Eight they used to impersonate Boomer in the brig, but he certainly did some damage. And it’s pretty clear that the plan was always to have Boomer impersonate Athena, so Chief knew Athena would have to be hurt and may have even told Boomer where to find her. He didn’t know that Boomer would take Hera, but he was kicking himself when he realized who that little girl in Boomer’s projection really represented (actually, it’s probably the other way around—for Boomer, Hera represented that little girl).
Though it was his own doing in this instance (with helping hands from Roslin and Boomer), I think Galen might have actually surpassed all others as the most shit-upon character in the series at this point. And most of it has happened in this season alone. I just cannot foresee a happy ending for the guy, and it breaks my heart.
As for Boomer’s feelings and behaviors in this episode, I think that her love for Galen was real, as much as she’s capable of such a thing. She was certainly manipulating him, but I’m guessing that what she said about thinking of him every day was largely truthful. That projection of their home was very detailed, indicating that Boomer spent a lot of time crafting the place (which is also, I’m sure, partly just an accidental side effect of shooting in a real house, but since I’m finishing this blog after having seen the next episode, I have the luxury of already knowing that I’m right :D).
The fact that Boomer left Athena alive also seems significant. It could have been mercy, it could have been because Galen asked her not to kill Athena, it could have been an attempt to soften the justice that’s sure to fall on Galen after this, or it could’ve been Boomer wanting Athena to live through losing her daughter (the sex didn’t seem planned, so I don’t think she left Athena alive just to witness that).
Also, she really didn’t have to give Galen a little “no matter what happens, I meant everything I said” speech (paraphrasing). The fact that she said those things to Chief before she left indicates that she meant them. I guess if you believe that Boomer, by nature, does everything she can to manipulate emotions, then she could be lying. But he was already doing what she wanted and I don’t see how she had anything to gain from what she said to him there—she’d already played him by that point. I took her words as if she was thinking, “I know I’m going to destroy you, but I still meant it when I said I love you, and I hope that gives you even just a tiny bit of peace.” Even if she didn’t love him the way she used to, she was still trying to give him something to hang onto because she knew what she was doing—and what she’d manipulated him into doing—would probably destroy him. It’s probably her only well-intentioned action in the entire episode.
Having said all of that, I’m far from cheerleading for Boomer’s redemption at this point. Given her actions in this episode, I don’t think I could find it in my heart to even care.
Why did Helo and Hera fail to recognize that Boomer wasn’t Athena? I can fanwank explanations easily enough. As far as Helo is concerned, Athena started out pretending to be Boomer—that was the initial basis for Helo and Athena’s relationship, though it certainly morphed into something else later. We’ve never seen any human be able to differentiate between Cylon models without at least some kind of hint. Gaeta recognized the Eight in the webisodes because she hinted that he should recognize her. Galen recognized Boomer right away, but Galen is a Cylon. Helo was horny, and Boomer was in the place where Helo expected to find his wife, wearing his wife’s clothing, and therefore smelling like his wife. The same goes for Hera—it looked like mommy, wore mommy’s clothes, and considering that she’d just come from frakking Helo, smelled like both mommy and daddy. Plus Boomer was dosing her with some kind of tranquilizer almost instantly, so I can certainly understand why Hera would be temporarily fooled, as well.
I didn’t think Athena beating on Helo had much to do with the sex, but was more about her certainty that Boomer had taken Hera. Athena will never forgive anyone for what’s happened to Hera, and I think the Boomer/Helo sex is pretty secondary to that. Not to mention, if the writers play up the sex aspect, it’s going to feel like a Melrose Place story arc involving an evil twin. I may very well be wrong, but I’m going to find it all way too soapy if we get a bunch of angst between them about the sex when their daughter has been kidnapped and is heading straight for Cavil.
My biggest problem with this storyline is actually the fault of Ron Moore and director Michael Nankin. When it first became clear to me that Boomer was going to have sex with Helo, I was slightly annoyed because it seemed like such a trashy, soapy plotline. But after thinking about it for 10 seconds or so, it made sense that Boomer would see it as a revenge of sorts because Athena was able to have what Boomer never could, and I was okay with it. The sex was clearly unplanned, but Boomer went way over the top with the noisy moaning, which indicated to me that she was getting off on the idea of Athena being forced to witness the act.
But hey, guess what? All that complex, character-driven motivation involving how Athena and Helo’s relationship was founded on Helo’s feelings for Boomer didn’t even figure into why that scene ended up in the episode. It was Nankin’s idea, because he thought it would shock viewers and light up the internet, and Moore thought this sounded like a grand idea. Which completely fucking sucks. I mean, the show has been handled well enough up to this point to take on a life of its own, so all of those character-driven subtleties are there whether the writers intended them to be or not. But I’ve already been pretty disheartened by the writing quality after the mutiny arc, so knowing the true, cheap motivation behind the scene doesn’t really do anything to shore up my faith in the people behind the show.
To make matters worse, Moore also revealed in the podcast that Boomer escaped to Galactica with Ellen as a ploy to get Hera and that everything she did was in service to that plan. Did Boomer play along with Cavil to get away so she could try to earn forgiveness on Galactica and try to start over again with Chief, only to end up following the plan when she realized there was no forgiveness to be had? Nope. Did Boomer have every intention of carrying out Cavil’s plan, but waver when she finally talked to Galen again? Nope. There’s no room for personal interpretation.
I know not everyone listens to the podcasts, but if you enjoy discussing the show on the internet, it’s pretty much impossible to avoid having the podcast contents paraphrased to you. And even if I’d chosen to listen to it, it bothers me that Moore, as a creative individual, would be so readily willing to tell viewers what to think, even the ones hardcore enough to listen to the podcast. I think Moore really missed an opportunity to create a complex situation and allow viewers to make up their own minds about what happened.
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