What to say about tonight's episode of Battlestar Galactica? This 43 minute episode was 40 minutes of boredom capped with 3 minutes of "what the frak just happened?!"
Pussyfooting up to the major issue (and giving people who haven't seen it yet a chance to back out from the spoilers), let me start by saying why I didn't like the bulk of the episode: it felt completely untethered.
Suddenly, Starbuck's having trouble sleeping. We're told she's had this problem since the mid-season cliffhanger wrapped up, but we've never had any on screen indication of this until tonight. This new development is completely untethered with the events of the last six weeks.
Here are all these flashbacks of Starbuck's past history with her mother. But to me, they aren't really connected to events in the present in a meaningful way. Really, there isn't a meaningful plot happening in the present -- just Starbuck's spontaneous cracking up that nobody's seen coming.
Of course, just when I'd be about to write this episode off completely, along comes the blindsiding ending. What are we supposed to think now? Has Starbuck now completely thwarted the notion that she had a greater destiny by essentially having killed herself? Is she supposed to not actually be dead, but off on some supernatural spiritual journey? Is this in any way connected to D'Anna's exploration of the "space between life and death" (from a Cylon point of view) in the first half of this season?
Suddenly, the stark realism and harsh reality that the show has always portrayed (and which would now say Starbuck is dead, dead, dead) comes in complete opposition with the mythic aspect to the story (that says that can't be it if Starbuck indeed has a destiny to fulfill).
But narratively, everything in the episode adds up to a clear message: So long, Starbuck. There was an elaborate re-cap at the start of the hour, covering virtually every key moment involving her going back to season one. There was a callback to one of her first scenes ever on the show, with the "nothin' but the rain" exchange with Adama. There was the "when I die, I want you to do this for me" conversation with Lee.
Man, I really have absolutely no clue where the show is going from here.
9 comments:
IMO, these last two episodes were great because they are setting us up for somethin down the road.
We are already hearing two thoughts about Starbuck - she is a cylon [the one seen when Xena apologized to ghost face in the temple] OR we saw briefly she had her hand near the eject lever - and she ejected but we didn't see it cuz of the storm.
Either way, h'm sure the ccommercials in the next week will spoil it for us.
did they mentioned the atmospheric pressure would kill her? in any case I think the ghosty cylon ship was not a delusion, just a vampire like thing where it won't appear on cameras or in mirrors or something. she must have ejected and that ship picked her up. that's what I'm going with to make sense out of the otherwise weird ending for Starbuck.
I doubt she's a cylon since she remembers a childhood. but I'm going to guess we have some "final five" involvement here somehow (maybe the FF are doing the thought-projections to Baltar, Six, and in this episode Starbuck?)
the mole
Seems to me that we're pointed in one single direction. Kara is a Cylon. Leoben is her Chip Buddy (and the Heavy Raider was a delusion). She plunged into hard deck (evidently the point at which the gas giant's gravity would destroy a ship) to die, and get reborn aboard the Resurrection Ship. She was the Cylon between life and death that Three saw.
To me, and I mean no offense by saying this, I found this so obvious as to be misdirection. Which is to say, that I don't think that's what's really happened. Or maybe it has.
I liked this episode.
I see your point, Evan. Why didn't the writers try to build up to this moment rather than just put all of it in one episode? In other words, why did we suffer through the haphazard "The Woman King", "A Day in the Life," and "Dirty Hands" to get to this point?
Rather than having an original thought of my own, I'll just comment on everyone else's posts.
I doubt she's a cylon since she remembers a childhood.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Sharon "remember" her childhood, too?
IMO, these last two episodes were great because they are setting us up for somethin down the road.
Sure, but the whole season has been "set-up." This week, we finally got something resembling a payoff.
The only thing I'll say regarding the "Why do we only find out now that Starbuck's a psycho?" bit is that she had been through a lot in the last year. It made sense that she should be a little off, but we just hadn't been able to see inside her head until now.
Gotta agree with shocho that the "she's a Cylon is TOO obvious". Unless Moore is an idiot, he wouldn't go there. What I'm thinking is that their going to pull out the "Ship of Light / Beings of Light" nonsense from the first series. If I remember correctly, it was Apollo's "death" that brought that storyline to fruition. They're slowly telling the old stories and introducing the old characters (Athena, anyone?) so sooner or later they'll haul this out. The only good thing is we might actually see a Count Iblis if I'm correct.
Re: Mkae
Or... they're somehow binding the Beings of Light to the Final Five. All that earlier talk about being between life and death points to this storyline being resurrected. I just hope this is handled as well as the Pegasus storyline.
...now if they even try that Eastern Empire bullshit...
I haven't decided if I'll be disappointed if Starbuck is a Cylon. I feel it's entirely too obvious a solution (echoing Shocho), but no matter who ends up being a cylon it will be a bit predictable (since they've been dangling that particular carrot in front of us since the beginning)
With that said, I agree with you on the episode as a whole - seemed misjointed...
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