contentThe teaser had visions of the Opera House, strains of ‘All Along the Watchtower’, and Hera in CIC ramming a Galactica model into a basestar model. At the close of the episode, Adama informs to Tigh that he intends to send Galactica off in style. The two scenes I feel play into each other. I can’t imagine Adama will allow the other ships captains to strip Galactica to the bones as they want. Perhaps part of the end game is Adama and Tigh at the helm of Galactica making a suicide run to destroy The Colony. Adama is about to lose Laura and his ship. Adama and Galactica are the two most important things in Tigh’s life. Neither man seems to have much to live for at this point.
Lee
I’m going to break my silence on the subject and talk about Lee’s hair. Personally, I’ve always liked the longer hair on Jamie, but it was particularly unruly in this episode. I think hair was being used as a story telling device. Lee’s was kind of a mess. Kara’s looked (no pun intended) lifeless. Tigh hadn’t shaved in days. Athena looked (justifiably) terrible. Hair was another indication of how bad things now are. These people are doing the bare minimum they must do in order to face the day.
For a moment I was horrified at Lee’s reaction to looking for The Colony and risking everything for a child, but I quickly realized this was very much in character. Lee argued against going back to New Caprica for the very same reason – the possibility of losing everything and for humanity ceasing to exist.
Lee and Kara
I hope you are sitting down for what I am about to state. I really, really liked the scene between Lee and Kara. I was curious as to how a scene between the two would play out once the truth about Kara was revealed. Lee’s grown to much as a person to have the same selfish, childish, and assholish reactions he did when he found out about Kara and Baltar in KLG or when Kara returned with Athena in tow in ‘Home’. I had envisioned him asking her, calmly and quietly, why she hadn’t told him sooner and Kara pointing out she tried, but, well, his wife had just committed suicide. But I like the way it was handled here much better.
Lee has come further than even I gave him credit for. He accepts who she is without hesitation or judgment (a point alluded to in his talk with Adama in ‘He That Believeth in Me’). He doesn’t care that he wasn’t the first person she turned to or what her reasons were for keeping the information for so long to herself. None of it matters. What matters is, after everything they’ve been through, they are both still here. It ties to what Laura said to Adama. What is home? Is it an actual place or longing for something, a connection? We have Lee’s answer. Kara Thrace is home to Lee Adama. They’ve lost the colonies. They’ve lost friends and family. They’re about to lose Galactica. The future is uncertain. But right here, right now, they have each other. If she wants to talk, he’s there for her, if not, that’s OK too because she was, is, and always will be Kara Thrace.
Kara and Sam
Kara told Sam she’d put a bullet in his brain if she ever found out he was a Cylon, but it’s important to go back further, to LDYB, and Kara making Sam promise he’d kill her rather than allow her to be taken prisoner and hooked up to machines at one of the farms. Now, it’s Kara who is confronted with Sam being in some sort of limbo between life and death and making the decision to end his suffering.
But Sam is aware, on some level, of what is happening around him. He awoke just as Kara was about to pull the trigger. He still has more to tell, about the past and possibly about their future. I’m sure he wouldn’t want to live the rest of his life as he is now, but there is more he needs to say before he dies.
And I appreciate the show’s efforts to make it clear that Kara does love Sam. I feel she loves Sam as much as she loves Lee, just in different ways. Unfortunately, it didn’t hit her as to how much he meant to her until he was shot. The bullet was a trigger not just for him, but for her as well. She married him for all the wrong reasons, much as Lee left the military for the wrong reasons, but now she’s faced her feelings for him and realized how much he’s always meant to her.
Athena and Helo
I was waiting for, even hoping for, Athena to tear into Helo. But the silence, it’s a far worse punishment. The only person Helo has to turn to, who understand what he is feeling is Athena, and she is refusing to speak to him. Not only is he left with no one to share his agony with, but he must face that Athena may never forgive him and he’ll have lost his entire family.
Helo and Adama
I said last week I thought Grace Park had one of, if not her finest, acting moments on the series. This week it was Tahmoh’s turn as he was on the brink of emotional collapse. Helo is dealing with the potential lost of everything that matters to him and is begging Adama for one raptor to search for his daughter…and Adama tells him to, “Let it go.” Just when I thought my hate for Adama could not be any greater.
I don’t know which is more infuriating, the callousness of his comment or the hypocrisy. When Kara was missing in AoC/YCGHA, Adama sure as hell didn’t let it go. He risked the entire fleet to try and rescue her and told Lee if it was him they would never leave. And what about taking a raptor to drift in space, hoping his would be girlfriend would show up, and leaving the fleet in the care of Tigh? But Helo is supposed to just suck it up, get over it, and move on. Just like Adama did with Zak. Yeah, right. While any loss of a child is a tragedy, Adama has had five or six years to deal with the loss of his adult son in an accident. Hera is a child who has been gone for a few days, at most, and is likely still alive. There is a huge difference between Lee arguing for the fleet not to be endangered in the search for Hera and risking two people and a raptor and at least letting Helo and Athena try.
Boomer
I thought Boomer might turn the raptor around and return Hera to her parents. Her commitment to the plan, whatever it is, is wavering and I still hold out hope for her redemption. Her reaction also formed a nice parallel with Athena’s crying at the beginning of the episode. Athena is breaking down at the loss of what she had, while Boomer is breaking down at the loss of what could have been and now will never be.
Caprica and Baltar
A very interesting role reversal has taken place. Until now, it has been Caprica who has sought Baltar’s love and acceptance. While I’m not convinced that Caprica doesn’t still harbor some feeling for Baltar, her eyes have been opened to the man he really is. I loved her remark about not wanting to be part of his harem. Though her pregnancy and relationship with Tigh ended in heartache, she has seen the possibility of having something more, a relationship, maybe even a family, and she doesn’t have to settle for being just another notch on Baltar’s bedpost and hoping he’ll notice her
And when the person who helped bring about the near annihilation of humanity can take the moral high ground, Baltar, you have a problem. Caprica has changed. She’s admitted her role in the destruction of the Colonies. She feels guilt. She’s tried to help the fleet when she can with no benefit to herself. But Baltar is still acting as selfishly as ever, now using Kara’s revelation for his own purposes to try and maneuver himself into some sort of leadership position once again.
Laura
I’ve been defending Laura’s characterization the past few weeks. She’s had scenes I loved, particularly the scene with Lee in ‘No Exit’, but her characterization her infuriated me. When she made the comment “Your women” to Adama, I lost it. Laura Roslin is the savior of humanity. She put together a fleet and stopped Adama from making a suicide run against the Cylon fleet. She’s sacrificed herself soul bit by bit, set aside her ideals and beliefs for what she believed to be the greater good. She’s not the person she wanted to be, she became the person she had to be. But, now, on her deathbed, she is lumping herself in with a ship – one she admits Adama loves more than her – and declares the she didn’t truly have a home until the last few months with him. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive and irrational, but I feel like I’m being told that Laura didn’t have happiness and her life wasn’t complete until she had Bill Adama as a partner. Gods forbid she experience fulfillment from personal accomplishments and leading her people.
Random notes…
I now understand why they recast Hera. They needed a child old enough who could act on cue and one that would understand Grace isn’t really mad at her, she’s just acting.
I don't think Cavil means to harm Hera, at least not in the sense of dissecting her and killing her. I suspect he's looking at cloning possibilities and a way to continue the Cylon race if they can't resurrect resurrection technology.
The Six sacrificing herself to save both the Cylon and human crew could prove to be a pivotal moment in unification between the races, as was holding the funerals together. We had not just an embracing of mutual loss, but a sharing of religious beliefs and ceremony.
I thought it was a really cool effect to have Sam’s blinking affect the power drops on Galactica. We had a sense it was happening, but not such a direct acknowledgment of how tied to the ship he had become
Would Lee have put Dee's picture next to where Kara's was on the memorial wall? That seemed a bit odd. I suspect the show just wanted to remind us of a recent loss.
And I hate to tell people how to post, but if anyone is going to discuss spoilers for the finale, clearly mark them as such and put them behind a separate cut tag or something. I almost got spoiled last night and that would have displeased me greatly.
