As finales go, Ron Moore brought everything to as triumphant a conclusion as you could expect. Maybe not as dark as some wanted. Maybe too dark. But ultimately Moore’s story of humanity’s survival is just that. A hard-won triumph filled with loss and pain, but leaving a continuous hope tempered with warnings of old histories coming back to haunt them.
Like all good space opera finales, it had everything a good space opera needs. A kick-ass final battle where our heroic warhorse takes the pounding of its legendary life. Character drama that rips out your heart. And deaths. Surprising deaths, funny deaths, and gory deaths. But deaths.
Moore had a lot to live up to with the finale to have it stand with the upper echelon television finales of the past. Some keep with the established premise and mood of the show while maintaining the high intensity like The Wire. Others change the established premise to something else entirely like a dream or hallucination. Prime example, and most clever one, is the final episode of Newhart. Genius.
Moore finds a happy medium. He still keeps the high energy stakes with the rescue of Hera and preserves the grittiness the show has always had. But some of it is also humorous and funny, not afraid to dabble in Monty Python-esque absurdities in the CIC or to even pull off an Earth 2 like Hitchhiker’s Guide.
But when all is said and done, I think the great divisiveness from the finale will be the unabashed and upfront spirituality of it. To me it made sense and seemed pretty cool that humanity’s future was being guided and overseen by cosmic preternatural forces. Gives a bit of epic resonance to the whole thing.
With that in mind, that’s why it didn’t bother me so much about Head Baltar and Six’s real purpose. Nor did Kara’s revelation of being a spirit or angel. As a matter of fact, the more familiar you are with Larson’s Battlestar the better it is because this is Moore’s much more tasteful version of Kara going to the Ship of Lights at the end. Two-shot of Kara and Lee. Medium shot on Lee facing away from Kara and turning back to Kara. Back to long shot. She’s not in frame. Wherever she went is up to the viewer. Simple and understated.
In fact the only thing that truly bugged me about Daybreak was the lack of cost. There were deaths, obviously. Racetrack getting blindsided sent a jolt. Boomer dying didn’t surprise me. Even as remorseful as she obviously was Karma and Mother Agathon is not so forgiving. Nor for that matter was Tyrol when he finally exacted some delayed payback on Tory for killing Callie, and worse her Cylon kin basically said she got what was coming to her. Where’s the love? Then finally we have Cavil. So determined to be a logical machine, so disgusted with his imperfect form. He gets the chance for resurrection and immortality and what does he get instead? Human madness, pandemonium, and chaos. Honestly, can anyone blame him for wanting out of this mad, mad universe?
But I did expect some real cost to be inflicted to make Hera’s rescue really resonate and I thought it was coming in the form of Karl Agathon. I liked Helo, but I knew if he died it would be extremely effective. Hope at a price is the greatest kind of hope because it is earned and it doesn‘t come easy or cheap. I thought he was shot in the gut on the colony and I figured he would die after the battle was over so I definitely got War of the Worlds Spielberg-flava when I saw him miraculously turn up at the end with his wife and daughter. Later I realized he was shot in the leg hence his crutch. Still don’t like it, but at least I can accept it.
But it does not negate my happiness with Daybreak by any stretch. My two favorite moments in the episode come with so much pain and awareness that you almost flinch from how raw it is.
The first comes from the final scene with (real) Baltar and Six. Pride was all it took for Six to finally fall for Baltar. And it was the final piece that allowed Baltar to unlock his heart. Pride in Six for sticking with him despite giving every reason to turn her back on him. And, most poignantly, pride in his father and his heritage after trying so desperately to escape the life he’s been ashamed of. So when he mentions that he knew a little about farming and Six comforting him, that started the verklemptness.
Yet there’s a fine line between acceptance and resignation and damn this show’s cynicism, it makes me wonder. Based off of what happened on Kobol, he was probably holding out hope that Earth would have fully functioning metropolises and technology-is-us, which means he can resume his scientific career and personal research into sexual practices and theories on the biological instinct for harems, but after the failure of New Caprica and irradiated Earth his hopes probably weren’t that high. So now that they’ve settled on a world without technology all of that scientific theory probably isn’t very useful. But agriculture is. His father and his heritage win in the end, after all.
But then they caress each other finding that unconditional love and my cynicism vanishes.
And speaking of unconditional, yes, I can’t ignore Adama and Roslin’s final moments. Beautifully played by Olmos and McDonnell. I’ll never look at Roslin witnessing her own death in the Hub the same way ever again. And apparently her subconscious is as prophetic as her conscious.
Yet again there’s that nagging niggle of doubt. For instance, Adama seems like he’s stalling trying to find a spot to build their cabin. Is Husker not quite ready to let go of his gallivanting across the galaxy? He tells Lee he doesn’t have much time left with her so he needs to make the most of it, but seems unwilling to let that time with her begin.
Then time makes the decision for him. And only then does he fully commit.
Bittersweet payoff to one of the most satisfying relationships Galactica gave us.
Then we skip to the epilogue. Epochs and eons later. Times Square. 21st Century on the shining plant known as Earth. New York City even more of a bustling, overcrowded metropolis than Caprica City ever was.
I’d love to believe that Ron Moore is a huge fan of Terry Pratchitt’s Good Omens as Spirit Baltar and Six are right out of it, but more likely it’s a nod to the angel and devil placing a wager on poor old Job. Job in this case happens to encompass the entire human race. Or thanks to the revelation that Hera was actually matriarch of the human race on Earth thanks to her hybriditude, really maybe earthlings should be referred to as Hulons or Cymans.
On second thought, I like humans just fine, I think.
Some fans kind of frowned on how the other characters lives on Earth weren’t elaborated upon but I think it was enough to know that everyone settled on Earth and tried to make the most of what time they had left. I’m sure there’s some fanfic out there where heartbroken and isolated Tyrol finds the love of his life in a Cro-Magnon mama. The important thing wasn’t the present for the former fleet, it was the future. And, well, the union between Cylons and humans is what was needed for the human race to survive. Lucas used midichlorians and the Force for a symbiosis metaphor, I’m sure we can forgive Moore for being a bit heavy-handed with the cultural harmony allegory.
And along those lines, Moore doesn’t let the human race off the hook. We don’t get a happy ending. We get a Butter Battle Book ending where our ultimate fate is yet to be decided.
The circle threatens to go around once more. Docile droids are being invented daily to make our lives easier, some very humanoid in appearance. All of this has happened before, but will it happen again?
So it’s happy but cautionary; let’s go with that. However it goes down in the annals of finales Ronald D. Moore has done the television world a favor by finding quality and visionary storytelling in the most unlikeliest of places. Despite the banality and idiocy of instant-gratification reality cesspools, the bar continues to be raised despite such tripe to new and exciting levels for future generations to take up the mantle and challenges that such bold artistry requires.
May it continue to do so.
TallGent
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