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[trinityvixen]

The season premiere of Battlestar Galactica was everything that the season premiere of LOST wasn't: tautly paced, adequately divided, mysteries appropriately revealed or concealed, and effectively conflicted. This is a show that routinely juggles a dozen characters of major importance (Adama, Apollo, Starbuck, Helo, CapricaBoomer, Gaeta, Tyrol, Roslin, Baltar, CapricaSix, Three, GalacticaSharon, and those are just the main ones; if I started listing all the supporting characters of major importance, I'd never stop), and you never feel as thought you've been cheated of time with any of them. They show up, they devastate you by being themselves in as succinct, terse a way possible (not necessarily emotionally, either, which is killer, too) while still developing plot, character, theme, and moral quandry. It's uncomfortable how awesome this show is because, with few exceptions, it doesn't pull punches and the premiere lived up to that reputation and then some.

The development with the humans becoming the insurgents made everyone I know uncomfortable because it is obviously cribbing a lot from current events. It confuses the loyalty we have for the human heroes we've come to love, flaws and all, because they are an oppressed people and, at the same time, unreasonable terrorists. When the issue of the suicide bomber came up, I was morally offended, but I applauded the man who went through with it. Why? How? How could this show make me admire something as reprehensible as that? How could I watch him kill his fellow survivors of the destruction of the colonies and not only not hate him, but consider only his strength? It's a dangerous sympathy, and a wrong one, I know it. The thing is, the show allows me to understand and appreciate the drive and courage of the bomber without condoning his actions. The bomber has a clarity of purpose the Cylons should envy. He has no God or Gods. He has a memory of love, powerful enough to mean more than his entire existence without it. It is revenge, that cannot be doubted. It is murder. But it is also love, and one theme of the show has been that love is more powerful than any motivator--more than hate, more than fear, in the end, love is the most terrible, awesome force. Witness what people will do for love, what they will sacrifice--pride (Baltar, Tigh), integrity (Roslin, Ellen Tigh, Tyrol), morality (Anders), independence (Starbuck), freedom (CapricaBoomer and Helo, together as one), life (the bombers).

The Cylons who have gone along with GalacticaBoomer and CapricaSix only reluctantly cannot touch that purest emotion, so they rely on the lesser ones. Which is why they can't win. What they can do is force the humans capable of love into a position where their love is a poison against themselves, and they did it really effectively. I joked to ivy03 that it was like the power play by the Emperor in Attack of the Clones--make the enemy seem stronger and more debased and desperate (or drive them to that point), and you can strengthen the power of the central government and its miiltary while looking benevolent. It's a scary good play for the Cylons still paying lip service to the drive of the DEMAND LOVE movement started by GalacticaBoomer and CapricaSix. You can't even hate them for it, really, which is yet another reason this show is genius.

I hurt for and hated on each and everyone person or machine in this episode, that's how good it was. I sat there watching Gaius with a gun to his head, wishing against his character that he would finally do the right thing. How amazing is it that the way the show is written, the way Gaius is written, he would never chose the selfless option, yet every time, I half believe he's reached some kind of limit where he just might do the right thing? Then he doesn't, and I'm disappointed in him, but I totally understand why he did what he did. His lack of integrity is bottomless, but the other options are usually just as terrifying to me as losing Baltar altogether. In that vein, I'm worried that, now he's outed as a traitor who is complicit not only with Cylon-dominated rule but murder of humans who balk at Cylon control that he won't have as strong a drive dramatically and narratively. Gaius was at risk all along of being outed as the traitor of the colonies through multiple angles--outright discovery with the Six-plant and her doctored pictures, with the bogus Cylon detector, with his crazy insistance upon preserving CapricaBoomer and Helo's baby (not to mention his squirrelly, insane behavior since forever). Without that risk, with him being exposed, even if it's only for the murders of hundreds instead of billions, Baltar isn't living with secrets (other than Six), and the chances of his being forgiven if the resistance and Fleet do overthrow rule or at least escape New Caprica are slim to none. If he is forgiven or redeems himself somehow, he will never be trusted. Villfied, he can only be marginalized. They'd have to do something pretty important to make him indispensible once again (given that they have CapricaBoomer to be the Cylon expert, one that's fully vested and trusted now).

It's like how I'd stop watching if Chief Tyrol were ever killed. Adama is daddy, Roslin mommy, Apollo and Starbuck easy favorites, but the Chief is...the Chief. He is the heart, the one that hopes and loves and breaks. There is no way for him to die that won't destroy me utterly and make this show entirely impossible to watch (kinda like the scenes with Fat!Lee). I know the TWoP reviewer says that Helo is our heart, but I disagree. He is wonderful, don't get me wrong, and the running Helo story on Caprica was necessary and perfectly executed, but I never loved Helo more than when he and the Chief were both in hock for killing the man about to rape CapricaBoomer. It's the Chief what does it. He is Galactica. The first time he says "We have a baby!" to Gaeta when Cally is taken, it sounded stupid, kinda nothing dialogue, but you watch the Chief, who has had more than his share of misery for being the heart, just break apart and away from logic until all he can articulate of the animate bond between him and his wife is that beautiful being they created together (the kind of love he shouldn't be able to lose for losing Cally, but which he will lose if she goes because he'll lose himself to grief and never recover). For the love of all that is holy, they can never kill the Chief. His hurt is my hurt, and his death will be the death my interest. Imperilling him or what is his (love, always love, which is why Cally's blind devotion and forgiving love isn't annoying to me, because I would be the same way for him) is the surest way to make me die. Cally escaping makes me all kinds of uncomfortable. Because Roslin cannot die, and she will not, and if she and the others in front of the firing squad are spared, the chances of a second miracle for Cally are nonexistant. Not without a price, miracles.

Babies seem pretty important, too, and I wish the ploy Leoben used on Starbuck had worked. I think she was amazing, but only in the way that she is still her, and that Starbuck is, has, and always will be incredible. However, it seems less dramatic against the rest of the cast growing more and more dark in outlook, confused in loyalty and direction. Cassie is not her daughter. It is a trick (Hera, from the previews, is shown to be younger than Cassie, and she would have been conceived first, as CapricaBoomer was pregnant before Starbuck was taken to the farm; logically, there is no way for the two-three year old child that Cassie is to be Starbuck's), and Starbuck either knows it and is doing a long con on Leoben (which, though I said she is smarter than him, I think I am wrong, and he will outlast her if she tries to fool him into believing she loves Cassie) or she is so broken by Leoben, she's forgotten she cannot be it's mother. I don't think it's the latter, but I fear the consequences of the former. I also feared that Leoben would be mad that Cassie was hurt when Starbuck wasn't watching, but it was revealed to be set up (think about it, how precious she would be if she truly were half-Cylon, half-human, and you know that he wouldn't be given leeway to put her in jeopardy with a hostile nanny, which is yet another reason Cassie, though an innocent, is a trap). I am more afraid still that he will be less than forgiving when she cannot love him even when they should be bonded (as the Chief and Cally are) through a baby (even if it were theirs, I do not think he could ever force her by using a baby--Starbuck is not a mother; it is the wrong tactic to use on her, and Leoben, unless he's too far gone to realize, should know that).

As demonstrated by the pair-bonding revealed in full this episode, union cannot be forced or coerced. Ellen Tigh and Cavill, Starbuck and Leoben, the Cylons and Humanity--these are lies masquerading as forms of love (attraction, obsession, care-provision), and they will be destroyed or self-destruct, usually taking one or the other partner with. Then you have the bonds that stand in opposition to that falseness: ones where the recognition of its existance is outstanding it its own right (Sharon Valerii becoming Sharon Agathon, so no longer only CapricaBoomer); the practical, even-exchanged if not entirely content (Lee and Dualla Adama); the devoted to the point of madness and dissolution (Saul and Ellen Tigh); and loves stronger for the deprivation and doubt and destruction around them (Kara Thrace and Sam Anders, Tyrol--gah, can't call him Galen, just can't!--and Cally, the suicide bomber and Nora). These will survive every challenge, except those from within, which I predict will be the new redirection of the Cylon attention whenever it is they figure out they cannot break the bonds from without.

As for the rest:
-MAJOR SQUICK for Col. Tigh losing his eye, but the way he not-dealt with it when Anders and Tyrol stared and told them about it? FRAK. That's up there for the most uncomfortable moment in the whole episode, against other heavy contenders, like the suicide bombing and CapricaSix being boxed (be honest, she's not coming back; they can't let her). His torture (gah, wanted to KILL Cavill when he said the Cylons changed out the scratches he'd been making in his cell) is another way the show made me understand his motivation to resort to the suicide bombing. I don't forgive Tigh--he's a rotten leader, as he proved with the previous military coup when Adama was shot--but I understand him. Again, I love, I hate, I cannot judge Tigh. I cannot.

-Anders is growing on me. The guy is hardcore in a way that has not previously generated the respect it ought. In "Downloaded," he was determined to kill the Cylons, even though they would regenerate in new bodies because they would remember the pain of dying and that humans had caused it. That's fucking HARDCORE. Then when he snapped at Tyrol and Tigh in the premiere, I was all up in their grill, too (he made me angry at the Chief for being ignorant, and that's impressive given my massive Chief-love). This guy has been through this before, which, non-military guy that he is, gives him the one-up on an officer like Tigh or an engineer like Tyrol. He had been left behind before, and he's understandably bitter about it. He was rescued only barely on the second return journey of Galactica crew to Caprica, and on the day of his rescue, half the people he'd been leading were slaughtered. His doubting Adama, which is intolerable as it is in Adama we trust, is perfectly justified. His line about Starbuck being the only reason he was alive killed me. I never liked the conflating of his sexual attraction to her and hers to him as love, but to watch the actor say "my wife" and then cover, badly, how very much he misses her finally convinced me. It may be desperation, clinging to something to build new futures from the ashes of the past, but the devotion, however shallow the beginning, is without limit now. Starbuck is indelibly linked to him (the tattoos make sense for them, as they don't for the others married of late), and she to him. Even if they fall out of love, they will always be.

Also, note that it is Anders who does the grooming for the suicide bomber. It's Tigh's strategy, but it is Anders' op. The man dying is his man (making Tigh's dismissive, "I feel guilty about all my men dying" that much more hollow--he barely acknowledges the guy). Anders will not lose this man for anything less than complete assurance the man is ready, willing, and able. How scary the bomber is in his utter lack of hesitation is matched only by Anders asking it of him, allowing the compassion of understanding if he cannot do it, and accepting that he sends this man to die. Chills, yo.

-The confrontations of conflicting parties:
Boomer and Cally--I don't think Cally is jealous of Boomer, only naturally suspcious. GalacticaBoomer is able to resume her life with Tyrol if she wants; she is not able to be offed and gotten out of the way, as Cally can be. With enough pressure, GalacticaBoomer can insinuate herself back into the Chief's life the way Sharon Agathon did in Helo's. Cally doesn't trust GalacticaBoomer because she was the one who killed her, a, and because she does not know how love of the Chief has reformed this Cylon against the ideal that led her to betray that love in the first place (how can she? Cally has always loved the Chief faithfully, and cannot know the pain of betraying him as such, so, understand Cally's position, but pity GalacticaBoomer).

Roslin and Baltar--You can see how hard it is for her to sublimate her absolute hatred of him, of herself for being better than him and not taking from him the power he doesn't deserve. At the same time, he is desperate, so willing to forgive her previous slights and beg her assistance in good faith to save lives that he forgets he is more deeply in shit with her than she with him. Amazing, if brief, scene (got a laugh over his calling her a "lovely lady"--she ain't never gonna touch you, squirrel boy).

Roslin and Zarek--One time allies, last seen in opposition. Their time together is too brief, but every moment a joy. He is an indescribable character, his loyalties and motives more mysterious than Baltar's for being unexplored beyond the surface (pity, he has no ChipCylon to explain it to us). Together, Zarek and Roslin are incompatible yet powerful. No alliance will last between them, but the ones that spring up will level their enemies. Now is the time to recruit Zarek, though it will mean the end of Baltar as we know him.

Lee and the rest of the Fleet--I gotta be honest, this caught me out of nowhere. When last we saw him, there was no hint he'd stopped being, well, Commander-ly (ha ha, Commander-Lee). When he took control of Pegasus in "The Captain's Hand," his natural mastery of it was astounding and right--he was stepping into shoes that belonged to him and that had always been waiting for him. Where he fell off that in four months is impossible to guess. He wants to rescue the New Capricans, but he is too much a student of Roslin as she exists in opposition and as a check to Adama, where the rest of the Fleet is loyal to Adama, first and last (the Galactica crew trust no other, the Pegasus crew believe in the chain of command existing above all other authorities, as Cane's behaviors proved). Lee takes her lessons to heart, and he really has the right idea of humanity first, friends and attachments second in the grand scheme of things. However, what point is there to a humanity that is cowed, hounded, dwindling, and friendless? Look at the bonds that survived among the Fleet that jumped. You have Helo and his wife only because she is a prisoner (and he would never leave her). You have Lee and Dee, a constructive, honest sort of relationship (she hits hard, though not as hard as Adama, of course) without the pizazz of any of the New Caprican-bound lovers. The Fleet, as represented by these loves? Doomed. So, Lee is right. Going back for the New Caprican contingent may result in the destruction of the Fleet and the permanent subservience of the rest of humanity to the Cylons, which will only end in humanity's ruin, one way or another. But Lee is also wrong, because without that contingent, the Fleet is loveless, imprisoned, and, ultimately, doomed. It could have been done more fairly to Lee (boy, did he take hits), as his side needed to have more weight (ha ha ha, right) as it wasn't totally wrong (or, at least, no more so than the other side). I wish he'd had someone backing him up. That's where it fell flat, having everyone think he was just a nagging nay-sayer (including frakking Kat grumble grumble grumble--where the hell is Hotdog when I need him? Why do people think he's dead? When would that have happened?).

Previews: Yes, happy we haven't forgotten little Hera, the object of Roslin's hubris, the real miracle next to the false promise of Cassie. No, Gaius, you're not a Cylon. You don't know that, but we, the audience, do, because all of the Caprican Cylons know him for a human, call him a human, and marvel at CapricaSix for being able to entwine a human so deeply that he gave up the worlds for her. I will be pissed if they try to build serious suspense around that. Want serious suspense? Question Gaeta's loyalty. He's in a position of trust, he's barely acknowledged by the Cylons, suggesting he is either not worth their time (on the contrary, with what he's privy to, he should be) or is trusted by virtue of being one of their number). How about Tory, the Total Cylon aide to Roslin? Hurrah for not-Fat!Lee. Can't get him onscreen fast enough. Goodbye, good riddance to the Adamastache, too.

My Gods, that took me nearly two hours. I am so drained. But soooo worth it. Must discuss, must. Someone, please, talk about it with me? It's so...perfect.

I love this show.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Mmm, we'll see. Honestly, I'm giving them some leeway to make some statement about how everyone jumped to get married (those who settled and those who stayed on the Fleet). I'm less enthused about the jump to throw in babies and children left and right. I mean, it's natural that people who finally got a break might try to catch up on what they might have been able to do without the war, but it's getting to be overkill. So, the sooner Casey is wrapped up, the better.