It started unsurprisingly enough, with life on the ship continuing to wear on Callie Tyrol. Things get worse when she sees her husband Galen and Tory (two of the four secret Cylons) talking, and Tory making a move on him. Galen rejects this, but Callie doesn't see that.
And then things get much much worse. Callie trails Galen to a meeting of the three Cylons (the fourth, Starbuck's husband, is on her ship, looking for Earth), and discovers to her horror that that's what they are. Back in her quarters, she beats Galen with a wrench, and takes their baby to a Viper launch tube. She's thinking of opening it, and killing her baby and herself.
But Tory comes by. She's compassionate, sensible, understanding, and eventually talks Callie out of suicide. She takes the baby from Callie - and knocks Callie across the tube with a powerful Cylon blow ... and ejects her from the tube into raw space and cold death.
We have learned something crucially important: this secret Cylon, at least, is capable of cold, calculated, vicious murder. She says - in her talk to Callie - that she is just like any other human. Ironically, this is true. Humans are of course capable of murdering people who are threats to their well being. But any illusions or hopes we may have had that these secret four might have somehow been different is shattered - at least, for this one. And is there any reason to think the other three might be different?
I did have one quibble with this superb scene - if Tory is able to hurl Callie across the tube, did she never notice she had this power before? Like the question I posed about Tigh in an earlier review, the lives of the secret four prior to their revelation as Cylons remains a puzzle that flirts with inconsistencies. But that's ok ... I have confidence that at least some of this will be resolved.
Meanwhile, speaking of deaths, the Cylons are in open civil war back in their part of space. Dean Stockwell's One has come back, offers some great analysis of democracy (he has the best lines on the show), and feigns a reconciliation with Six and the good Sharon - all to lure them to a place in space with no Resurrection ship in sight, where they can be killed forever...
Of course, it's just these versions of those models that are killed, and who knows what the other versions of those models will do once they learn what has happened...
See also ...
Battlestar Galactica's Back and Bristling! ... 4.2 Mysteries and Satisfactions ... 4.4: A Little More about Cylons ... 4.5 Mutiny on the Demetrius ... ... 4.6 Cylon on Cylon ... 4.9: Finally, Bill and Laura ... 4.10: Earth
and So Say We All: The Battlestar Galactica Blog Carnival, vol. 3
"jumping with ideas" - Denver Post
13 comments:
The hybrid babies are the key. Have to be. Having to secure Nikki from an unstable Callie threw another Cylon switch in Tori's head. She just got kicked up a notch to 'ruthless'.
Good point, JY - welcome to Infinite Regress.
I just came across this blog, so I apologize if these points are a little scattershot:
(1) My guess is that the 4 "secret" Cylons were real humans but were replaced by the Cylons (and somehow "programmed" with their human memories) not long before the Cylon attack on the colonies -- which would (a) entirely explain Tigh's age, and (b) partially explain why none of the four noticed having superhuman strength in his/her first decades of life (I mean, yes, it's still confusing why, say, Andera didn't notice it in his athletics recently, but it's less confusing than if he had that strength all his life -- maybe if you don't know you have superhuman strength, you just get used to performing at normal human level? runners talk about how until they try a marathon, they think, "I can't possibly do more than 5 miles" or so).
(2) Tory was ruthless as a politician long before she knew she was a Cylon; wasn't she instrumental in trying to fix the presidential election? That's not the same as murder, granted, but it's not clear her murder here shows any new character trait.
(3) I'm relatively new to online discussion of the show, so my apologies if this sory of speculation is trite, but: Wouldn't a likely answer to the "what about Earth" riddle be that the twelve colonies were colonies that departed from Earth thousands of years ago, leaving a cryptic trail back home via mystical/religious folklore (not unlike Greg Benford's speculation that folk tales/songs can be used to pass important information down through time)? That'd set up a somewhat happy ending to the series -- the humans and the Cylons all get to Earth, which leaves Adama & company wirred that the Cylons will destroy earth -- but Earth turns out to be far superior technologically, because the colonists came from a spacefaring civilization but then fell behind, starting from scratch on the new colonies, making the Cylons no threat. I'm under no delusion that this definitely will be the ending, but I think it'd tie up some loose ends (e.g., how these wacky mystical tales might have a grain of truth) and yield some satisfying closure.
Welcome to Infinite Regress, Scott - and thanks for your well-reasoned, excellent comment.
1. Your explanation is the best I've heard so far about the apparent inconsistencies in earlier lives of the Secret 4, and their being Cylons now.
One problem it has, though, is this: is there any other case of Cylons modeling skin jobs on living humans (and then replacing them)? If yes, then I'd sign on to your explanation. If no, then it still could be the best answer, but, from a story-telling point of view, it's a little like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
2. Good point, too, about Tory. Yet, as you say, being ruthless is a long way from being murderer. I'm pretty ruthless in opposing people politically, negotiating some of my publishing contracts, etc - but, so far, I haven't even come close to doing what Tory did... :)
3. Good thoughts too about Earth. (But here I would just mention that, although Greg Benford does indeed make that point about folktales and songs passing on important information through time, it's an observation that pretty much universally held by anthropologists, media theorists, etc).
Anyway ... it will be fun to see where the series goes ... it's off to a brilliant final start.
Paul, thanks for the reponse about Benford's point being one anthropologists and media theorists had made. This is what happens when I let myself become a poorly read person (outside of the mostly dry legal scholarship I have to read) -- I end up thinking the latest sci fi I read is the source of all worthy ideas!
As to your question, "is there any other case of Cylons modeling skin jobs on living humans (and then replacing them)?" No, there isn't -- but I think the answer to, "what's the deal with the Final Five?" has to involve them being unique in some way to explain why the first seven might view them as too "holy" to discuss. Viewing the Final Five as "holy" because they're a link between Cylon and human (i.e., they're Cylons modeled on humans) would also be consistent with the Cylon view of Sharon's human/Cylon hybrid baby as special and holy -- that merging the two "races" is a religious goal....
Anyhow, I'm under no delusion this "the five were modeled on the real humans and were given their memories" is the actual answer, and you're absolutely right that "from a story-telling point of view, it's a little like pulling a rabbit out of a hat" -- but I'm worried the show has written itself into a corner (e.g., Starbuck's "resurrection," and mystical coincidence like the supernova coinciding with the human/Cylon arrival at the eye of Jupiter late last season), so I'm fishing for any explanation that'd make some shred of sense! Of course, as a screenwriter I just make a decent lawyer, so I'm sure (I hope?) the BSG team can come up with something much better than my rabbit-from-hat explanation!
One thing that kind of bothered me about the episode is that Callie's choice of suicide method is the airlock. She's already experienced the vacuum and cold of space, and it wasn't very pleasant. Would she want to put her baby through that?
Good points about the Final Five, Scott.
Tvindy - yeah, that bothered me, too. In fact, why would she want to kill her baby in any way?
I guess we're supposed to think that she was so distraught, she was close to crossing that terrible line that we hear or read about every once in a while... But I'm not sure that was sufficiently motivated in the story.
Paul thanks for the interesting read... and these are some great comments :)
Uh I was worried about the baby I have to admit, but throughout the episode one thought that kept coming to me time and time again was it is another cylon hybrid baby... and none addressed it directly (or maybe Tory or Callie did, but I simply could not watch :)
So maybe that was the idea, maybe that was going through her head when she went into the airlock...
bertas - good point ... Callie so hates the Cylons that she would kill her hybrid baby ...
A line or two in the dialogue would have helped bring this point across (I don't recall any either)...
Great episodes this season!
RE: "I did have one quibble with this superb scene - if Tory is able to hurl Callie across the tube, did she never notice she had this power before?"
Maybe her abilities are only now starting to manifest. Tory told Tyrol at the beginning that she liked the new sensations and feelings she was experiencing, so interpreting it this way would be consistent with that...
Good point - agreed!
Welcome to Infinite Regress, patrick.
It is interesting that human-form Cylons have super strength, and yet there is no simple way to detect them through a medical test. Wouldn't they have considerably different musculature? (And of course, they also have a transmitter in their heads that sends out everything in their brains upon death.)
Good points, too, tvindy!
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