Robots can bleed, too

[trinityvixen]

Well, you all will appreciate it at least, so I'll tell you: I'm so currently depressed by Battlestar Galactica right now that I think it sucked the fanaticism right out of me.

Still, I have words:

There is a reason, as I understand it, that the Chief and Boomer fell in love: they are both fated to always, always suffer. No matter what choices they make, even the ones that don't rock the boat, they end up hurt. They just never know what decision to make to make it better. The only times they get it right is when others choose not to screw them over for it. The only thing Boomer got right was trying to make peace with the humans on New Caprica, but the humans and her Cylon family didn't let her. The only thing the Chief got right was giving in and, for once, Laura Roslin rewarded capitulation with respect. But he got everything else wrong.

And now he is alone. And she is alone. They will meet on the other side. She has killed half her kind. By the time they meet, I predict he will have killed half of his. (For certain, love his wife or no, the Chief will kill Tory when he finds out. The question is whether Col. Tigh or Anders will be caught in the fallout--or die in their respective impossible situations.) They will meet in a bath of blood, and they will get it wrong again. She will cry, and he will be angry. Boomer will want reconciliation, and he will want to apologize. They will, and they will be destroyed. Only then will either ever be happy. When they can stop, stop getting it wrong.

The last scene, in silence, broke my heart. Because of course Adama comes to break the news. If Laura keeps track of the numbers, he actually knows who they are (at least on his ship). He knows the history, from ugly to uglier, and, now, ugliest. Possibly, he will be the only one to mourn Cally (depending on how frakked up the Chief is--probably very).

And that's not fair. No one deserved this. Crashdown didn't. Cain didn't. Billy didn't. Kat didn't. Cally didn't.

Poor Cally. They couldn't let her go human; she had to go broken. Why? Did they think we wouldn't forgive Tory if Cally were entirely possessed of all her faculties? FRAK THAT. That's the weakest excuse. What was the point of frakkin' Lee Adama's completely illegal speech if not that we are capable of so much mercy? I forgave Gaius Baltar for enabling genocide. Forgiven. Laura Roslin stole a baby. I forgave her and I still love her. I forgive the Cylon for being as lost and confused as the rest of us. FORGIVEN. Why do you think I couldn't forgive Tory? Why does Cally have to be so bad for me to forgive her murderer?

Why couldn't the Chief do it himself? Did you think I couldn't forgive him? No matter what he does, know this: HE IS FORGIVEN.


Why didn't they make the hard choice? This is the last season, the last chance. Every episode they shy away from hard choices is a compromise too far. Where's my Hard Six? Godsfrakkingdamnit.

Comments

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Let's just skip the fight about Cain and Cally (we'd both argue till we're blue in the face and fingers bleeding, but never convince the other to sway). However the thing with Cavil and Boomer caught me a tad off guard there. No that was truly a "WHAT THE FRAK!!!" moment. Of course given the very nature of the Cavils I would have to believe that he is using her like he seems to use nearly everyone (human and Cylon alike). I imagine before Boomer and the Chief are back together, the Chief will have fragged Cavil(s) in a rather nasty way.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I know we've disagreed about Roslin, but you don't like Cally? You're glad that she was murdered? I can't see how you can do anything but sympathize with her. Her worlds keep being destroyed and they never give her time to reconnect the pieces. On top of some serious sleep dep and emotional estrangement, she lost her head and almost airlocked her baby. I don't think she made the choice, I think she was not thinking and almost did something desperate. Tory, on the other hand, murdered her for less of an understandable or sympathetic reason. I can't imagine how you can find that not horrifying in the extreme.

As for the Chief, he'll explode. I can see him rededicated to the fight against the Cylons now. Because they won't stop frakkin' up his life one way or another. If you imagine the show being a giant world-threatening device, the Chief is the one with his hand on the button. And he's going to push it. He has to because it is the wrong decision and that's the only one he can make. He can't let the Cylons live because they'll live forever and maybe he will to. You tell me: is he the sort of person who wants to keep coming back? After all the shit he's had come down?

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Well first off so you understand my point of view, Cally was as opportunist. First she kills the being the Chief loved beyond reason. Then she uses the guilt the Chief felt over beating her down (not to mention his existential crisis) to get him to marry her. There relationship only seemed to stay stable while in a constant state of crisis. Once things started falling back in routine (not to mention once the chief knew who he really was) their relationship went to hell.

After all that, she became a junkie to escape the fact that their relationship was really a sham of her own creation. Then she finds out the man she thought she loved wasn't what she thought he was. Correction... that the man she loved and who was the same person she always knew was bad for what he was. Nevermind we have already seen a couple examples of people with the insight to looks within themselves and realize the person they loved wasn't any different despite finding out the new fact about them.

So that brings us to Tory's actions. From my point of view, she saved a baby from a mother who was going to harm her own child and had the kindness to do a mercy killing. It's not exactly clear if Tory found the Chief first and then ran after Cally or if Tory was staking out the Chief's place after suspecting Cally of listening in. Regardless Tory saved the baby. There's no changing that. There's nothing to forgive in my mind. The Chief won't be happy about it, that too is a given. But given it's context I think even he will realize that it may have been necessary (though Tory won't be all that popular in his eyes).


I'm curious, what your thoughts on Boomer? That was a whole lot that they added with her character last eps and you have been rather quiet about it.

[avram]

I'm pretty sure they don't expect us to forgive Tory.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You never know. This show has made me forgive a lot of people I found monstrous or annoying. I forgave Cain--they made me understand how she could only have done what she did, even as it broke my heart for what happened to Gina, her first XO, Kendra, everyone on Pegasus. It's possible that Tory will redeem herself, that her actions will become a mercy or will make an uncomfortable point.

But I concede, you may be right. Many weren't ever supposed to be forgiven--we're not supposed to forgive the actual rapists on Pegasus. We're not supposed to forgive Duck. We're not supposed to forgive the people who are the tools because they commit without conscience. The question is: does Tory have one?

[viridian.livejournal.com]

We're not supposed to forgive Duck?? Man. I felt bad for him.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I felt bad for him, too. But I don't think we were supposed to be overly empathetic with him because he is shown to make a horrible, horrible choice. Without the webisodes to show how utterly his life was destroyed, it just seems cruel in the show. I dunno. Maybe we're supposed to forgive everyone?

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Aw. I didn't hate it this much, but I am a little depressed that they went that route.

And I see you're channeling Jacob's reviews. I just read his review of Six of One and feel like I am back in a college English lit lecture.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I hated the fact that we weren't allowed to mourn her. We were supposed to half find it convenient to airlock her. I was totally horrified. Because I remember Kat. Kat was so annoying for so long, and her death episode made me cry. Because we never get to spend time with the superlative, interesting side characters unless they're going to die that episode. They deserve better.

And yes, I channel Jacob because I felt like I was twisting in the wind and he manages to make sense of all the bullshit.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I was never a huge Cally fan but yeah. She deserved better. :/ I was amazed to see how many people were basically okay with her death as no big deal and were cheering Tory on. I think Tory's actress is doing interesting things with the way she plays some of these scenes, but what Tory did was pretty effed up.

[fairest.livejournal.com]

I'm more bothered that they didn't have Cally go through with her plan, if they were going to write her into that situation in the first place. *That* would've been the hard-hitting thing to do. Cylons manipulated you for years? Everything you knew about your relationship a lie? Bitch poaching your baby?

AIRLOCK.

That's what they backed away from. If Cally seriously believed that Tyrol knew what he was doing in manipulating and marrying her for the purposes of half-Cylon children, having her use the airlock would've shown unexpected strength and resolve in the defense of humanity--she could've robbed the Cylons of a major victory, and taken out Tory in the process. Especially after Tory's entirely unconvincing speech, which reaffirmed that the Cylon goal was just to protect the valuable resource at stake.

I mean, obviously, it's insulting to Cally's character to have her reduced into a paranoid, emotional mess, and if she were able to think clearly, she could've headed straight for Bill Adama, reported the Cylons, and gone into hiding with Nicky. Better plan, more interesting long-term results for the show. But if they were going to write her into this situation, having her choose the weak path, when HELLO, SHE IS ALONE WITH AN INFORMED CYLON AND WILL DIE ANYWAY, was a real letdown. :P

Also, I agree with Avram; I don't think we're expected to forgive Tory or sympathize with her. She's enjoying being a Cylon. Though spacing Cally was technically a matter of her species' survival on Galactica, it wasn't played as that kind of decision.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's something I've said all along: the show needs to make the hard choice or else it's compromising as it has done in late season two and most of season three. The hard choice was letting Cally live in some capacity. I don't care how, I don't particularly care which of the awful choices (for her, for the Tyrol family, for the crew, for the final four Cylons, for anyone) they went with, but the challenge was not met. The hard choice is learning to change, adapt, and survive--to forgive. That's what they had to do with Athena, and that was a really strong story. Here they totally dropped the ball. This is Gina killing Cain. This is Roslin's cancer being cured. It's easy.

I find Tory's embrace of being a Cylon kinda interesting, but it's, again, too friggin' easy to make her just villainous. They've not really developed her character to a point where we can forgive or understand her ruthlessness like we could with Col. Tigh when he started the suicide bombing on New Caprica. She's not a person enough to be convinced that her actions are anything but cold machine logic (and, really, that stopped being interesting in Cylons since Boomer, Caprica, and D'Anna all went nuts).

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

I was actually surprised that they didn't have her report what she saw and not be believed by anyone. Even Doc Cottle wouldn't have been on her side, probably, and after that I think I would have been much more ok with the way it played out. To have everyone be told of four skin-jobs and yet have the circumstances keep them from recognizing the truth would have been really awesome in its own way.

It is fucked up when the "courageous" choice would have been for her to airlock her own child, but that's definitely what the episode left me feeling. Frakking BSG! They really get to me, man.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

BSG made me cheer for the suicide bombers last season, so I totally get what you mean with BSG. They make you applaud for horrible things.

The courageous choice for Cally, I feel, would have been to confront her husband and figure out how to trust him again. All along I've thought their relationship was more frakked up for the fact that it started with a brutal beating than for his being a robot married to an anti-robot zealot. I wanted them to address that more, but because neither was glamorous enough to rate the romantic treatment that they WASTED on annoying pairings (Lee/Dee, Lee/Kara, anyone and Lee Adama), they didn't until they offed one of them. Sigh.

But a courageous choice would have forced someone to change. It would mean Cally would become a monster who airlocked her own child to kill a Cylon. It would mean Cally was a fleet hero for turning in her own husband and three others for being skinjobs. It would mean ANYTHING that didn't just preserve status quo vis a vis who-knows-about-the-final-four. Gah.

[negativeq.livejournal.com]

I just watched the ep online.

I never liked Cally as a character, her weakness and whininess always bothered me. Like Harlon, I saw her as an opportunist, and was uncomfortable with her marrying the chief. The only time I liked Cally was when she bit her would-be rapist's ear off.
I am also still upset that the CHIEF wound up being a Cylon. He's had to deal with so much already.

While I agree the "hard" choice would have been to space herself and Nicky, I was confident that wouldn't happen. Why? Because presumably that male baby is the future mate of Hera. The writers were highly unlikely to kill him off (but that would have been FANTASTIC, and have been a courageous, complicated scenario for Cally. Have we ever had a story in which the mother successfully destroys her dangerous child?).

I am actually not bothered by what Tory did. It's pragmatic. Cally is acting like a nutcase and dangerous to the Torie, Tigh, Chief, and Nicky. In that airlock, Tory didn't have any other option but to space her.

And as for Cally, the best thing she could have done given what she knew and her mental state would be to beat Chief to death, then space herself, Torie, and Nicky. Brutal victory, but I don't think she could have gone to authorities for assistance. They might not believe her, and she might not be able to trust them anyway...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I would have preferred your solution to the one given, honestly. Because that feels like a true reaction. She was in no position to reconsider whatever half-drugged reaction she had. She shouldn't have stopped beating on the Chief. She shouldn't have hesitated to space Nicky.

But at the same time? Tory could have kept to the code the four agreed to--they agreed that if any of them stopped protecting humanity, they'd put a bullet through the brainpan of that individual. Tory's just done that. Cally wasn't a threat to the fleet, and she was a human, and Tory murdered her. Tory talking to Cally? Convincing her that the secret Cylons wouldn't hurt her and would protect her? That would have been a hard choice, especially for Tory who plays her secrets close to the vest and doesn't trust easily. But no, easier to space the inconveniently informed character.