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

[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.