Cally helped keep them in place, before the song. But now he doesn’t recognize his face in the mirror, so how can he know where or what he is? Tory knows how much Cally means to him, how he is rooted in her. After Boomer died, when he felt the toaster all over him, inside him, sickening, and it grew like a cancer until he nearly died, it was Cally that put him back together, like a mechanic. Whose grace in pain, whose forgiveness was like the memory of something we’ve all forgotten. Imagine the eyes of something infinite and loving, that could forgive you anything. Not like a hound, not like a pet, but something brilliant, that saw all your angles at once, the dark and bright sides, all the facets, and loved you anyway: that is the gaze of love, and it keeps you in place.
Spoilers below the cut.
Let’s talk about faith. Lee, you’re so stupid. So beautiful and polar and stupid. Because what you want, what you really want, is Gaius Baltar provoking holy war all over the fleet. Because that’s a good idea. Moron. One of my favorite books is The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell, about a man who comes back from something horrific and revelatory and has to put himself back together. And everyone thinks they know what happened to him, and when they tell him what they know, he says to them, “It’s all true, and it’s all wrong.”
That’s how I feel, watching Lee and watching Laura. It’s all true. They’re all right. And it’s all wrong. And this isn’t a case of thinking I’d do differently (Shit, I know I’d do differently. I’d have airlocked Baltar long ago and kept Lee chained up in my quarters as a pet for sex). This is being able to agree with both of them and be horrified by that, be skeeved by what you have to protect, by what you have to let go in order to be something worth saving. This is a case of thinking there’s something about this I’m not getting, because it’s all true, and it’s all wrong. And Laura’s dying, and Lee’s out of place, and all Adama can see is the wig and the frailty in Laura’s hands, and the hardness of her voice. Edward James Olmos is amazing, okay, in that he can break my heart without saying a word. He closes a book and whispers to her, in the dark, all the things he cannot say.
When my grandfather died, I got into a serious fight with a family member, who felt I was coping in an inappropriate fashion. All I really did was cut off all my hair and be kind of hopped up and pissed off for a while, I didn’t burn down a house or anything, but he felt the need to lecture me on how I ought to be getting by. And so during that whole scene at the bar, I was saying to my TV, “Shut up, Adama, shut up, shut up, shut up.” You get through stuff however you get through it, and it’s nobody’s business but yours how, so long as you keep your fists out of other people’s faces. Or your cylindrical light bulbs out of people’s Raptors; Adama was within his rights to kick Chief off duty, but not to tell him how to think of Cally or how to feel.
Forget Chief’s trying to turn himself into whatever he thinks he is at the moment, forget that, he’s a guy who had a complicated marriage which is now violently over and here comes Adama, trying to uncomplicate it in hindsight, for him. It’s appalling and for the first time I felt for Adama’s ex-wife. And saw where Lee got his ideas about things being all one way, or all the other. Things that are all true, and all wrong.
Tigh hardly bears talking about.
This is one of those eps, I think, that is gonna make a shit ton more sense two or three eps from now.
A.
the boiled cabbage stink of her
There’s some contempt in a few little words. I’d say Chief is definitely over her. Or he’s trying to convince himself he is.
Lee made a lot more sense as a pilot with an overdeveloped sense of scruples than he does as a politician with the same character flaw. There was something tragically heroic about him before. Now he’s just annoying. And he looked better in the uniform too. Or out of it, for that matter.
And I keep wondering, given that the whole fleet knows Baltar and his cult are under attack, why Laura doesn’t take the opportunity to just have the guy killed and be done with it. Just one more unsolved crime. It’s not like it would keep her awake nights. And it would sure solve a lot of her problems.
Did Starbuck get a full epidsodes pay for that one scene?
First, I’m talking out of my neck because I didn’t get to see this episode past the first act. Frak you, SciFi.com.
Next, if people knew where Baltar was, why the frak wasn’t his security better? One frakking ninja girl ain’t enough, yo.
As for Chief being over Cally, he’s over her when he’s over being human. The human part of him ran to her; the Cylon-suspecting part of her made her life miserable, and that was before the Dylan. In a way, he didn’t deserve her, but I wouldn’t go overboard as Jacob does. He can lay off the Chamalla just one week…
And still no answer as to why Baltar has to stay on the Galactica? No class-M planet they can set him down on, with his followers? If they’re right, they’re in spiritual league with the Cylons, and they might lead the Cylons to Earth. If they’re wrong, they’re merely crazy, and should be separated from the main gene pool, ASAP. Either way, kill them or let them lead separate lives, ’cause this forced closeness isn’t working for me.
Oh, Athenae — the Geek Cred tag is missing, and that’s where I go first on Friday nights…
Entropy.
.
cgeye, I forget who said this to me recently, but it was something along the lines of “if someone says you deserve better than him, BELIEVE HIM.” Or her, in this case.
(Fixed the tag, too, thanks. Teach me to post after that second drink.)
What got me was Chief’s callback to Starbuck’s line of couple weeks ago: “These people are my family, and none of us belong here.” They don’t, they really, really don’t, nobody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Nobody’s with the people they’re supposed to be with. Everything got wrenched sideways and they’re all still, STILL, a little lost.
I was watching bits of the first season in these fanvids (shut up) and realizing just how good this show was even right from the beginning, with the building sense of disorientation that’s now reaching a shriek in your ears. Back then it was just because the world had ended.
Just. That was all. Humanity destroyed. That was the best it got.
Jesus, you know?
A.
Haven’t seen last night’s episode yet, and am trying not to read the comments, but I have to post this. Mr. BuggyQ and I were just talking about the show from last week, and we were trying to figure out if they find Earth, what will it be like?
I said I think the 5th Cylon is George W. Bush.
Mr. BuggyQ said, and I quote, “Jeez, what did the Cylons do to deserve THAT?”
I thought Tigh changing the kid was funny.
Oh yeah, kill Baltar. That’ll calm things down, NOT. Kill him and you’ll have suicide-bombers all over the fleet.
What got me was Chief’s callback to Starbuck’s line of couple weeks ago: “These people are my family, and none of us belong here.” They don’t, they really, really don’t, nobody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Nobody’s with the people they’re supposed to be with. Everything got wrenched sideways and they’re all still, STILL, a little lost.
I was watching a repeat of Colonial Days from a few years ago and that was Zarek’s whole rationale for running for VP.
Laura and the quorum were trying to recreate a life that was gone. People were going to work each day, doing what they’d always done — even tho there was not work to do.
It was time to move on and create the new world, not try and recreate the lost one.
They’re still trying to recreate the lost world.
Oh yeah, kill Baltar. That’ll calm things down, NOT. Kill him and you’ll have suicide-bombers all over the fleet.
Nah. His followers are a bunch of groupies. Almost all women.
Groupies don’t turn into suicide bombers.
Besides — you’d have to believe the makings of a bomb are a great deal harder to get ahold of on the fleet than they are here.
you’d have to believe the makings of a bomb are a great deal harder to get ahold of on the fleet than they are here.
They weren’t hard to get on New Caprica, were they?
Groupies also aren’t usually able to beat up men twice their size either. If Baltar hadn’t stopped her, that guy would’ve died. They’re not groupies, they’re disciples.
you’d have to believe the makings of a bomb are a great deal harder to get ahold of on the fleet than they are here.
A wig: Now THAT I was surprised about them finding in the fleet.
Shit to make a bomb wouldn’t surprise me in the fracking least.
I mean they did leave that nuclear warhead lying around… even though it was conclusively proven that Baltar either couldn’t detect a toaster if he stared one in its red eye or deliberately lied about Boomer…
If they could explore New Caprica enough, they probably mined the hell out of it just to prepare fertilizer… and we all know what that could turn into.
Is Lee really all that stupid? How different are Prez Laura’s actions from those of the Bushies after 9/11 in this case? Clamping down on rights to create security for all – sound familiar? Lee is being downright annoying but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
Also, WTF is up with imaginary Six carrying Baltar? So perplexed. Need two more episodes stat!