"exodus 1 + 2"

[rivendellrose]

Thanks to my damned uterus, I'm not exactly feeling in peak condition today, but with the help of ibuprofen, mint tea, and tums, I'm surviving and looking forward to getting through the day and going out to dinner tonight with The Boy.

Anyway. More BSG.



Exodus

Lots of big happenings in this one, and I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of things, but I'll try to cover as much as I can. First off... okay, kungfuwaynewho, I definitely see what you were talking about yesterday, regarding Tigh. I do feel badly for him. This one time, the situation he got into wasn't his fault except in that he married a totally crazy woman who, this one time, was actually acting in a vaguely understandable way. I can't say I wasn't still really mad at her for selling out the resistance (would it really have been so hard to tell Tigh about what was going on?), but I can understand why she did it and it was a fairly shitty situation all around. And Tigh... took responsibility. In a really awful way. It's fairly horrifying to say that I think he did the right thing by killing Ellen, particularly so close to them all being rescued, but... what else could he do, I guess?

And this really was the episode for spineless characters actually taking a stand in the world, because Gaius actually attempted to do something right, too! He thought about it! Although I would really like to know how he thought he was going to shoot D'Anna while she was holding Hera. Um. Caprica says she wouldn't use the nuke, now that she's felt true love, and apparently she's right about that (after all, we seem not to have gotten all blown up), but I can't help thinking that leaving D'Anna in possession of Hera is going to be a problem in the future.

Speaking of problems that are going to come up in the future, particularly regarding Hera... oh, Sharon. "Adama wouldn't lie to me." Um. Actually... well. That's really not going to go well when she finds out that D'Anna was telling the truth. And that just guts me, because Sharon's grown so much, and come so far! I fully expect homicidal crazy rage when she finally comes face to face with the fact that yes, Adama did lie to her.

I was stupidly, utterly charmed by D'Anna's little scene with the dog, and her comment to Doc Whatshisname that at least the dog understands "we're all God's creatures." The Cylons really are just all insanely desperate for love, aren't they? In whatever form they can find it. It's like a whole race that are actually working the "he just needs a hug" villain in a way that actually works. And then she's all nasty to the doctor because she can't seem to figure out how to deal with the fact that he does his job for Cylons just as much as for Humans. And because she's obsessed with Hera, naturally. (Poor Hera.)

And on the subject of obsession - and of children! - Kara and Leoben. I'd pretty much pegged that for how the "holding me and saying you love me" prophecy would work out (it was this or him dying to save Kasey or maybe Kara herself and then being held while he dies), but I wasn't necessarily expecting the ending of that little arc (for the moment), with Kara arriving back on Galactica and starting to introduce Kasey as her daughter, only to be interrupted... by Kasey's actual mom. I remember at one point early in this arc having a moment where I thought "yeah, but that could be any little blonde girl, and wouldn't that make her older than Hera? So what's the big deal with Hera, then?" And then, typical of me, I completely forgot both these arguments. Right up until it was proved that, ha, no, that was actually just a random little kid who happened to like like Starbuck (because boy did she ever) who the Cylons apparently just stole from her mom. Because they (particularly Leoben) are just great people like that. Leoben: Seriously the creepiest damned Cylon ever, and the only one I don't have the teensiest bit of sympathy for.

Hell, I like D'Anna better than him (admittedly, this is probably residual effect of a childhood crush on Xena, but still!), and she's pretty damned crazy and nasty sometimes. She's just... it's not personal with her. It's not like she wants you to love her before she blows you to bits. She's just doing what seems right to her. I disagree with her, but I can understand where she's coming from (particularly with her little speech about how if they left the Humans alive then eventually they'd come back for revenge... I don't like it, and I think we should move beyond that sort of thing, but I do get it). With Leoben, I get the strong sense of a total sociopath who has a script in his head about how love is supposed to work and how it ought to go, and he's just following it and trying to force it to go that way no matter what the other person thinks. He's the only Cylon who, to me, really does seem to just be acting out programing without any actual understanding of what it means. And, yes, curse it, I do find that interesting. Just not enough that I won't be cringing every time he shows up.

Gaeta gets to be briefly bad-ass! The Boy pointed out that he would have gone with Gaius to make sure he didn't just chicken out, wander off and be a self-serving useless bastard yet again, but I think Gaius was pretty flabbergasted by the whole experience - he didn't look very comfortable with that gun, as much as he'd decided that he had to do it, and he looked very... tired, when he let go after Gaius left.

On the whole, I thought this was a really brilliant episode... but also faintly formulaic. Through all the lead-up, I kept telling The Boy "Pegasus is totally going to show up at the last second." Because that's just the way these things go! If you send off one party right before the big battle, of course they'll show up right when things look the darkest. And of course Maya was killed, allowing D'Anna to grab Hera. And of course Sam took Kara, not realizing that Kasey was still back there, and then Kara woke up just in time to get back in and get her, and Leoben showed up just in time to catch her, and then Sam showed - granted, I was very pleased they didn't pull the classic move of him showing up while Kara and Leoben were snogging, because that would have been both trite and really frustrating. Don't get me wrong at all - I loved this episode. But I did still feel like it was more predictable, and therefore a bit less thrilling, than "Downloaded," which still has my personal vote for the most awesome episode of the show so far.

I still cheered for Roslin when she insisted she'd be going back on her ship, and got a bit misty-eyed at her taking her chair back, though. And Zarek was actually a good guy, protecting Roslin and getting someone to escort her and all. Bless. And was very pleased with the big reunion scene. And everything. It was so well-handled, everything.

And now Gaius and Hera are off with the Cylons. Whooooooo boy. That won't cause problems in the near future, no, not at all.

And we're back to only having Galactica as our only battlestar. Very nice.

Comments

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

But Galactica jumps into the atmosphere! That's an automatic extra hundred points!

Nah, I see what you mean about it being a little formulaic. I think that for big action-y climaxes, sometimes there really are only so many ways the plot can go, and the surprises depend on which pieces do what part. So like you said, you don't expect Gaius to be the one with the gun at the end.

Really, my only complaint is the pacing of the actual exodus, because by the time they're worrying about D'Anna setting off the nuke, it seems to us that most everyone's already got off the planet. I always feel like that scene in Colonial One, with Gaeta pulling the gun, should have been cut earlier into the episode; but they were cutting on emotion, not on plot, so. I get it, but I'm always like, "Dudes, it doesn't matter, everyone's already making for the rendezvous."

The music for the reunion scene just guts me. Ugh.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

You're right, I TOTALLY forgot to mention that bit of unbelievable awesome. There was cheering. Oh yes. ♥

by the time they're worrying about D'Anna setting off the nuke, it seems to us that most everyone's already got off the planet.

I wondered about that, too. It seemed like they were trying to imply at one point that the nuke would blow the ships as they were leaving, but... that doesn't seem at all right. I suspect you're right that there may have been some rearranging of scenes for dramatic purposes, causing that to not make sense anymore.

The music in general guts. I am a bona fide fangirl for the soundtrack on this show.

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

Have a great time at dinner tonight, and a wonderful day tomorrow.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I will! ♥