"I went to a place to eat. It said 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered french toast during the Renaissance". --Steven Wright ... If you are a devotee of time travel, check out this song...

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Battlestar Galactica 4.2: Mysteries and Satisfactions

Some sweet mysteries and deep satisfactions in the second episode of the final season of Battlestar Galactica tonight ...

Minor mystery, though maybe not so minor: Why is Baltar talking to Baltar rather than Six? Baltar asks his conjured vision of himself if "he" is not really Six, and "he" doesn't really answer, but ... This gets us to focus, once again, on exactly what the palpable vision of Six that only Baltar can see has been all along. Somehow, not just something arising totally from Baltar's brain, since the vision gives him information that (presumably) Baltar couldn't know ... Unless, Baltar is a Cylon ... Nah, too obvious ... But, whatever's going on, it could be that this Baltar seeing Baltar rather than Six offers some clue to something profound....


Big mystery/big satisfaction
: What exactly is going on with the seven minus one (who is boxed). We see Six changing the Centurions' programming so that they riddle One (played by the always convincing Dean Stockwell) and his two nasty Cylon colleagues with bullets - this after One got a majority of the six (by One or someone getting Sharon's model to vote against herself) to agree to "lobotomize" the raiders - because One et al are understandably concerned that the raiders showed independent judgment in pulling back from the attack last week. Ok, makes sense, and it's indeed satisfying to see arch, smug One get what he deserves, especially after he told us last year how painful he finds the Cylon reincarnation. But ... seeing as how the bullet-riddled Cylons will come back, what was the point in killing them? Nonetheless, it was very satisfying to finally see Six acting totally on her more humane impulses ...

Biggest satisfaction: Lee and Kara kissing, and Lee telling Kara, "I believe you".

Just sayin'...

But, we all believe Kara, don't we?

And why is that? After all the tricks we've seen, including Cylons who don't even know they're Cylons, why do we believe Kara?

That may be the biggest mystery of all.

Well, not bigger, of course, than who is the final Cylon. My two current guesses are: Admiral Helena Cain (hey, she was pretty brutal, she was killed ... but if she's a Cylon, she can come back ... and it makes sense that the Cylons would put a skinjob on the Pegassus) or Tom Zarek (Richard Hatch of course was in the original BSG, and it would be cool if he wound up being a Cylon now) ...

And, as a fallback, I'd say President Roslin. When she said she couldn't be sure, tonight, in response to Starbuck's insistence that Starbuck was no more a Cylon than Roslin, well ... Roslin saying she couldn't be sure, could have been Roslin talking about herself.

See also ...

Battlestar Galactica's Back and Bristling!
... 4.3 Deaths, Lessons, Questions ... 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. 2





Borrowed Tides

"jumping with ideas" - Denver Post

4 comments:

tvindy said...

Also, extremely interesting to me was Kara's remark about how familiar the Earth was to her, as if she'd always been there.

Anonymous said...

I think Baltar seeing himself is a huge clue. Remember how one of the Sixes (the one on Galactica) sees that Baltar vision? It shows there's more of a connection between them than even previously guessed... And also, somehow, those visions really are independent "beings" and not just subconscious thoughts... I think. :-P

Anonymous said...

Cannot be Admiral Cain from the argument that it makes sense they put a skinjob on the Pegasus, as none of the Seven (except D'Anna) know who the Final Five are.

If it's Roslin, why has she got cancer?

Paul Levinson said...

anon: but did any of the Seven (other than D'Anna) know who the hidden four on Galactica were?

About Roslin: she certainly has a strange kind of a cancer, though - curable, at least for a while, by hybrid blood...

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