shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2020-12-05 09:27 am
shallowness) wrote2020-12-05 09:27 am
Entry tags:
BSG - Epiphanies, Black Market, Scar.
As ever, a LOT happened just in ‘Epiphanies’, and I’ll admit now I get hysterical every time I think of magic baby blood saving Roslin. (Was there a prophecy for THAT?) I mean, Adama getting saved by surgery I just about buy, Lee getting rescued at the last second even though he didn’t wanna, and Kara landing on a life-supporting planet and finding a Raider all adds up…but with this, one is left with the conclusion that nobody ever dies but Cylons!
So, Roslin’s in pretty bad shape, and she’s also having convenient flashbacks to just before Caprica went boom boom – there was no reason for her to be remembering the strike talks. Her having a thing with Adair made total sense in retrospect, as well as for him to be one more person who underestimated her – taking such a hard line on all and every union’s action seems ridiculous to me, but I’m Welsh, still, HE COULD HAVE SAID that was the policy. Anyway, as this was also the no good day she found out she had inoperable cancer, the steel in her spine showed. And with longer term repercussion, she remembered seeing Baltar make out with Six, throwing new light for her on all his actions.
She’d also decided, based on the vague stuff the Doctor and Baltar spouted - seriously, I was all ‘and what does that mean?’ form the outset, that the Cylon-human foetus had to be destroyed. Apart from being snotty about the insult to his science, Baltar had Six on his back about ‘their’ child, but Adama accepted the command – the irony of the dying woman ordering the fate of an unborn child setting up the ironic miracle cure.
Helo was all torn between being the babydaddy and Lieutenant Agathon, Caprica!Sharon went all mama bear, although didn’t achieve much by it. Actually, the whole idea of a late, forced termination was incredibly distressing, until Baltar met Pegasus!Six (ah yes, crowd and nearly force yourself on someone you know has been raped, good call, NOT) and got the idea about the blood, which sounded like pseudoscience to me. So, Caprica!Sharon had to undergo an entirely different procedure and her abomination’s blood saved Roslin.
(I mean, I’m glad Roslin is still around, but even for a sci fi show where nobody dies, this way of saving her deserves some mocking.)
Gaius realised he didn’t want to lead (he’d change his mind, as soon as Roslin pointed out his egomania in the letter). I’d also been snarky of the appeasers, who were willing to carry out violent acts to their fellow humans to end the war. Pegasus!Six’s involvement in the movement helped explain this. And now they have a nuclear weapon.
‘Black Market’ and ‘Scar’ displayed BSG’s overuse of the ‘X Hours ago’ trope, and I’m undecided if they’re just generally over-reliant on it, or they deliberately wanted to use it for the Lee ep and the Kara ep because Lee/Kara. It was more effective in the second one, really, because by this point, you can show Lee on the verge of strangulation as much as you like, I don’t believe he’ll die. But there was also far more intricate intercutting with two timelines for the second ep (making it more similar to Roslin’s flashbacks). Also we cared more about the characters involved.
Who was the random blonde in Lee’s flashback? He’s never thought about her before! Instead of caring he was making the blonde and himself sad, I was noting that Laura had had more interaction with the union leader, and remembering how I’d bitched that Kara/Anders were underdeveloped. All that was wealth compared to Lee’s one teensy flashback scene. You can’t put THAT much weight on eyelashes.
The episode did keep wrongfooting me. But then I was slow to realise he was sleeping with a prostitute, which in my defence was a deliberately muddied set-up with the kid, Pia (sp?), though once I realised this, it made more sense given that Lee had feelings floating around for Kara and Dee. (Wouldn’t act on the latter, had to watch her being cute with Billy. Probably for the best if Billy is to be a future president.) Not to mention his depression. As nobody on Galactica can talk to a therapist, one was almost tempted to think that this was a reasonable coping mechanism…well, no, and the episode was ood about showing the messiness of Lee trying to get more emotional support from a transactional relationship and lying to himself about it.
The Lee-Adama stuff was good, though, from his father trusting him with the mission and knowing something was wrong and how they partially addressed it. (Was the girl Adama was talking about the one in the past or the one in the present, and I’m sorry for not remembering her name?)
So, it was Lee taking on the black market, which Roslin had been naive about. I mentally dubbed the guy behind it all Kingpin. And yeah, dude, how is child trafficking not a line someone like Apollo was goind to draw? Even if he’d also been naïve about what people in the fleet would do to get by. Not surprising at all that Varek moved in on the operation at the end, and interesting ramifications politically. Also WHO IS IN CHARGE OF PEGASUS NOW? Surely it should be Tigh, even though he’s such an XO. And, am I right that Apollo s still Galactica’s CAG, but Starbuck has retained her captaincy and been brought back to Galactica?
I would love the episode where they have to deal with antibiotic resistance, seeing as they seem to think antibiotics is the answer to everything. (Except cancer, because that’s Cylon-human foetal blood.)
So, from Lee’s terrible coping mechanisms to Kara’s in ‘Scar’. And this episode was elevnty times richer, because of her history with Tigh, Kat, Lee, Anders, nuggets past, Helo and Caprica!Sharon. The scene where she talked to Caprica!Sharon was incredibly poignant and layered, and I thought that Helo was the right person to have the conversations he did with her.
Bogeyman Scar worked as a synthesis of the past raiders and the outcome of what they’d done to the Resurrection Ship, and the growing tension between Kara and Kat was brilliant. Fun to see the competition between flygirls, for one thing, but they both knew the other’s weak points (hard not to notice Kara’s boozing, although in fairness, Kat didn’t know as much as the audience did about her vulnerabilities), and there was also the sense of a younger version of her nipping at her heels, while Kara had to deal with the greater responsibility of leadership and her hurting heart. (It took the previouslies to remind me that she’d promised Anders she’d return to rescue them immediately, only it turned out she didn’t have the authority and was enough of a soldier to obey that.) It was also great that both of them were right at different times. And the Lee stuff – I mean, there was clearly more than she was saying in the final kiss, and he pretty much showed that he wanted more than just sex.
And her doing the right thing to get Scar, while Kat got to claim bragging rights, and the final toast where she did know all the names was satisfying and beautiful, but the wear and tear go on.
So, Roslin’s in pretty bad shape, and she’s also having convenient flashbacks to just before Caprica went boom boom – there was no reason for her to be remembering the strike talks. Her having a thing with Adair made total sense in retrospect, as well as for him to be one more person who underestimated her – taking such a hard line on all and every union’s action seems ridiculous to me, but I’m Welsh, still, HE COULD HAVE SAID that was the policy. Anyway, as this was also the no good day she found out she had inoperable cancer, the steel in her spine showed. And with longer term repercussion, she remembered seeing Baltar make out with Six, throwing new light for her on all his actions.
She’d also decided, based on the vague stuff the Doctor and Baltar spouted - seriously, I was all ‘and what does that mean?’ form the outset, that the Cylon-human foetus had to be destroyed. Apart from being snotty about the insult to his science, Baltar had Six on his back about ‘their’ child, but Adama accepted the command – the irony of the dying woman ordering the fate of an unborn child setting up the ironic miracle cure.
Helo was all torn between being the babydaddy and Lieutenant Agathon, Caprica!Sharon went all mama bear, although didn’t achieve much by it. Actually, the whole idea of a late, forced termination was incredibly distressing, until Baltar met Pegasus!Six (ah yes, crowd and nearly force yourself on someone you know has been raped, good call, NOT) and got the idea about the blood, which sounded like pseudoscience to me. So, Caprica!Sharon had to undergo an entirely different procedure and her abomination’s blood saved Roslin.
(I mean, I’m glad Roslin is still around, but even for a sci fi show where nobody dies, this way of saving her deserves some mocking.)
Gaius realised he didn’t want to lead (he’d change his mind, as soon as Roslin pointed out his egomania in the letter). I’d also been snarky of the appeasers, who were willing to carry out violent acts to their fellow humans to end the war. Pegasus!Six’s involvement in the movement helped explain this. And now they have a nuclear weapon.
‘Black Market’ and ‘Scar’ displayed BSG’s overuse of the ‘X Hours ago’ trope, and I’m undecided if they’re just generally over-reliant on it, or they deliberately wanted to use it for the Lee ep and the Kara ep because Lee/Kara. It was more effective in the second one, really, because by this point, you can show Lee on the verge of strangulation as much as you like, I don’t believe he’ll die. But there was also far more intricate intercutting with two timelines for the second ep (making it more similar to Roslin’s flashbacks). Also we cared more about the characters involved.
Who was the random blonde in Lee’s flashback? He’s never thought about her before! Instead of caring he was making the blonde and himself sad, I was noting that Laura had had more interaction with the union leader, and remembering how I’d bitched that Kara/Anders were underdeveloped. All that was wealth compared to Lee’s one teensy flashback scene. You can’t put THAT much weight on eyelashes.
The episode did keep wrongfooting me. But then I was slow to realise he was sleeping with a prostitute, which in my defence was a deliberately muddied set-up with the kid, Pia (sp?), though once I realised this, it made more sense given that Lee had feelings floating around for Kara and Dee. (Wouldn’t act on the latter, had to watch her being cute with Billy. Probably for the best if Billy is to be a future president.) Not to mention his depression. As nobody on Galactica can talk to a therapist, one was almost tempted to think that this was a reasonable coping mechanism…well, no, and the episode was ood about showing the messiness of Lee trying to get more emotional support from a transactional relationship and lying to himself about it.
The Lee-Adama stuff was good, though, from his father trusting him with the mission and knowing something was wrong and how they partially addressed it. (Was the girl Adama was talking about the one in the past or the one in the present, and I’m sorry for not remembering her name?)
So, it was Lee taking on the black market, which Roslin had been naive about. I mentally dubbed the guy behind it all Kingpin. And yeah, dude, how is child trafficking not a line someone like Apollo was goind to draw? Even if he’d also been naïve about what people in the fleet would do to get by. Not surprising at all that Varek moved in on the operation at the end, and interesting ramifications politically. Also WHO IS IN CHARGE OF PEGASUS NOW? Surely it should be Tigh, even though he’s such an XO. And, am I right that Apollo s still Galactica’s CAG, but Starbuck has retained her captaincy and been brought back to Galactica?
I would love the episode where they have to deal with antibiotic resistance, seeing as they seem to think antibiotics is the answer to everything. (Except cancer, because that’s Cylon-human foetal blood.)
So, from Lee’s terrible coping mechanisms to Kara’s in ‘Scar’. And this episode was elevnty times richer, because of her history with Tigh, Kat, Lee, Anders, nuggets past, Helo and Caprica!Sharon. The scene where she talked to Caprica!Sharon was incredibly poignant and layered, and I thought that Helo was the right person to have the conversations he did with her.
Bogeyman Scar worked as a synthesis of the past raiders and the outcome of what they’d done to the Resurrection Ship, and the growing tension between Kara and Kat was brilliant. Fun to see the competition between flygirls, for one thing, but they both knew the other’s weak points (hard not to notice Kara’s boozing, although in fairness, Kat didn’t know as much as the audience did about her vulnerabilities), and there was also the sense of a younger version of her nipping at her heels, while Kara had to deal with the greater responsibility of leadership and her hurting heart. (It took the previouslies to remind me that she’d promised Anders she’d return to rescue them immediately, only it turned out she didn’t have the authority and was enough of a soldier to obey that.) It was also great that both of them were right at different times. And the Lee stuff – I mean, there was clearly more than she was saying in the final kiss, and he pretty much showed that he wanted more than just sex.
And her doing the right thing to get Scar, while Kat got to claim bragging rights, and the final toast where she did know all the names was satisfying and beautiful, but the wear and tear go on.