What the hell can I say?
When the history tomes have received their passages about the legacy of the revitalization of Battlestar Galactica, I think it will be known as the show that flirted, toyed, and danced with jumping the shark or nuking the fridge or birthing the Jar-Jar or whatever is the most current idiom.
What can you say about an episode that is almost entirely expository vomit, the flashbacks involve dialogue between two characters who seem to use every square area around them just to keep the scene from being static, and meanwhile the main crisis besides Anders’s brain boo-boo is hairline fractures in the hull of a ship? And, nevertheless, it still kicks ass?
Ron Moore must have a huge fetish for the Jaws movies.
Where to even begin? Well, I guess if we were to analyze the title, the episode seems to be inspired by everyone’s favorite existential good-timely guy, Jean-Paul Sartre. Like the characters in that play, each one of our characters is in a hell, sometimes of their own making. Ellen’s hell is probably being resurrected, strange as that sounds. She wants so much to aspire for humanity that her downloading into another body–another shell–negates that humanity. She’s always an other.
Cavil’s in the hell of being machine trapped in the imperfections and finiteness of the human being.
Then we have Galactica. Laura and Adama are both trapped in the hell of being partly responsible for the attempted mutiny, which is why Laura cedes the presidency to Lee and Adama wants nothing to do with lining the interior of the ship with Cylon icky stuff until he realizes quite poignantly he has no choice. It was great to see Tyrol back as chief again and standing up to Adama in a way that was more productive than the first time.
Anders was caught in the hell of old memories coming back and what that may mean for the others. Sartre would have hated the idea of Cylons (or anyone, for that matter) being trapped by destiny. But it seems that is the road we are heading on. All of this has happened before, and it will happen again.
I think the smart thing to do is to take a page out of Ron Moore’s book and remind myself that the story is all about the characters…stupid. When you get below the whole mythos and story and plot and contrivances, all of that doesn’t matter of the characters don’t ring true. And it’s to the credit of Moore and his partners and crime that he has never forgotten this central edict.
And what characters! Having Kate Vernon back was so, so great but it was great to see her as perhaps she was always meant to be as a strong, capable, and intelligent woman. This was no cougar in heat but a lioness of fierce conviction and compassion who clearly emulates the best traits of her race’s former masters. That distinction is important. Humans are flawed, but she realizes the good qualities as well.
Then we get more insight into Cavil. If we didn’t realize it before, we know it now. Cavil is one short-sighted and petty Cylon once you dig past his bad-ass leader stuff. That also is an important distinction. He focuses on the bad traits of humanity and in turn adopts them. And it’s like osmosis, you don’t even realize you’re becoming what you hate. Evil aims big but it starts small and ultimately it is made up of small, inconsequential stuff. That’s what Ellen is trying to teach Cavil. You don’t have to act this way.
Yet if Cavil chooses another way than all his “mother” has tried to teach him is justified. He’s not just a machine. He’s not just stuck in executing his primary programming objectives. And he’s determined to make her lose, even if in the end he still remains a machine trapped in the fallible, gelatinous form that ages and sweats and smells funny and he has no choice but to endure these continuous inconveniences. It was great to see Dean Stockwell back, and I bet he was glad, too, because I have never seen Cavil so self-loathingly venomous. Both Vernon and Stockwell really knocked the whole thing out of the park. The scene where we see Ellen’s desperate, unreciprocated unconditional love for her hateful son and his vehement refusal of that love was as painful as it gets.
Speaking of never-haves, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show with so much beefcake that are thespians in disguise. Now Michael Trucco can add his name to this group as he channeled Anders into 12 Monkeys turf with his stream-of-consciousness rants. Not surprising. You have Jamie Bambers give the mother of all courtroom monologues and Tamoh Penikett bring so much depth to Helo’s marriage with Sharon Agathon that the talent of this cast just amazes me, but never surprises me. It’s a shame that most of the mainstream knows Trucco as the one episode “smart hunk” that Penny lusted after in Big Bang Theory. Penikett’s working with Joss Whedon now. If there’s any justice both names will be household ones that aren’t just known by Sci-Fi Con devotees, God bless ‘em.
Ironically for an episode about no exits, one of them does physically when Ellen escapes from Cavil’s ship. And not to undercut this episode but this was definitely a “you better be a fan of this crazy show” episode. TM Frakkin’ I, even if the I was awesome out of my brain stem. And, really, plot wise we can surmise that Ellen’s on her way back to Tigh. Ooooh! Let’s see them try that on One Life to Live. I mean, yeah, they’ve done it a hundred times with ex-spouses popping up out of nowhere, but come on! Cylons, man!
It goes to show you that Ron Moore and crew are still taking chances and still confounding expectations even up to the end. The Galactica may be a crumbling bucket on its last legs but it can still stare down the shark.
Tallgent