well, THAT was unexpected...

[rivendellrose]

Definitely entering the approach to the end of another season. Buckle your seatbelts, make sure your luggage is safely stowed and that tray tables are in the upright and locked position. You may wish to put your head between your knees.



Maelstrom

I walked into this one saying "shit, Kara's going to have a head!Leoben, isn't she?" ...and walked out saying "...I can't believe they killed Starbuck."

Of course, that wasn't my first reaction. My first reaction after her viper fricking blowed up was "So... I guess we know who's one of the final five Cylons now." o_O Because... well. Because we're bad people and watching this after it's come out on DVD, and we've already bought one of the season 4 sets and, um, Katee Sackhoff is totally on the cover.

Granted, Tigh's left eye is still on the cover of S3, but I'm pretty sure they don't have to pay royalties to it for using its image, so... we should be safe. For a certain definition of "safe." A definition that involves "holy frak, Starbuck is either one of the last five Cylon models, or something really weird is about to happen."

That said, I still had a mini-panic when I noticed they'd removed her name from the credits for "The Son Also Rises." Niiiiiiiice move, guys. Way to freak the hell out of everybody watching the first time through. Because, honestly? Even being 98.9% certain she'll be back... ouch. Despite all her fuckwittery and dumbass behavior through the last three and and a half seasons, I've never got over feeling about Starbuck pretty much exactly as I did in the initial viewing of the pilot - she's totally annoying sometimes, but also so absurdly charming and adorable that I can't help but love her anyway. I could go on about what a fascinating character she is from a technical standpoint and how interesting her arc is and all that, but, really - I've known people like this in real life. People who annoy the hell out of me until they turn the charm onto me personally, and then I can't help smiling, joining in on whatever's going on, and vaguely thinking something like "...Hang on, I'm sure I was mad at you a minute ago. You're not allowed to just grin and make me totally forget that! That's not fair!" And that, to me, is Starbuck. I can't hate her. I just can't.

And, more to the point, I just hate seeing how gutted everybody is over losing her. Especially Daddy!Adama. ♥

Fairly sure other things happened in this episode, but I can't actually remember what they were anymore. Oh, except that apparently Helo and Sharon are taking Hera to a psychiatrist... which struck me as very odd until I realized that it was almost certainly understood they'd be the ones talking to the doctor. Still - good to know they haven't forgotten her or started pretending she'll be totally normal after her various ordeals.

Another reason not to worry about Starbuck being dead - I remember now that Leoben referred to her leading the way to Earth, specifically, and, yes, I get now that with the connection to the little figure we're meant to take that she's Aurora. Interesting. It wouldn't have occurred to me to count Aurora among possible gods for people to be associated with, honestly - she's so minor, doesn't figure prominently in any of the mythology, etc. It's a nice touch, though.


The Son Also Rises

Mark Sheppard! ♥ Mark Sheppard is a skeezy lawyer this time, instead of a skeezy small-time criminal, but he's still Badger at heart. I keep picturing his Very Fine Hat. ♥

Turns out Zarek was right about the assassination attempts... awkward. I find it interesting that the assassin turns out to be one of Our People who's tired of sending pilots out to die... so he's going to blow up the whole deck crew and a few viper pilots, along with the vipers themselves? Um. Logic, not one of your strong suits, Mr Kelly. Aaanyway.

Unsurprisingly, Mark Sheppard is a manipulative bastard of a lawyer. Not only has he managed to turn Lee against Daddy!Adama (not exactly a tricky proposition in any situation, but jeeeeez, I had sort of thought we'd got past this whole teenage I-hate-my-dad funk of Lee's - and, seriously, fighting over which of them misses Kara more? WTF, boys? Do we not have better things to do, please?)... but he's also being a total jerk to Caprica. I hope she kills him. ...Not really, because then I suppose they'd execute her right away, but still. The whole puppy eyes "he wanted you to have this pen even though it's the only pen he'll ever have and they won't give it back to him, because he'd do anything to be with you again!" thing? How stupid do we think Caprica is, anyway? My hope is, not anywhere near that stupid. Note to Caprica: I realize you love the little rat, but Gaius is not worth it. At all. Just give it up. Seriously.

I adored the lawyer's klepto habit. Nice way of bringing some extra mystery in, solving the assassin issue, and giving the lawyer a really interesting background... ah, as well as making him more sympathetic to stupid Lee, who falls for it hook line and sinker. Dude, you watched him play both Gaius and Caprica like fiddles - can't you see he's doing the same thing to you? No? Clearly not. *Sigh*

Also, I have a request: Can we please not have a random character be nasty to Sharon every single time the Cylons are brought up, just for a little touch of emotional blackmail? Last season it made sense. Earlier this season it was getting on my nerves, but I could still understand it. End of this season? Please, can't we just drop this already? It's getting tiring. At least the other pilots seem to trust her now.

...And, for the record, the more I defend her, the more I will be pissed the hell off if she decides at some point to betray that trust. :P

Looks like the next two episodes are the trial, judging by a picture of Lee in a suit. Did he just happen to have one in a box on the ship somewhere, or what?

...Oops, and I just saw the preview image on IMDB for the last episode of the season. That would be Starbuck. Okey-dokey, then! I'd wondered if they were going to wait until the beginning of next season, but apparently it'll be end of the season finale!

*Sighs* I know I should be lighting candles and thanking my lucky stars that I wasn't along for the roller-coaster of the first-run, but... it kind of makes me sad that I don't get to really experience the whole "OH MY GOD IS SHE REALLY DEAD??!!!" thing. Sick as it is, I really enjoy getting caught up in that stuff. Woe.

Comments

[velvet-midnight.livejournal.com]

Sick as it is, I really enjoy getting caught up in that stuff. Woe.

I know what you mean, but holy shit, that hurt like woah. I didn't like her most of the time, but I absolutely loved Starbuck. I was grieving. I mean, not while my main main Mark S. was on the screen, but still.

Speaking of, how deliciously awesome is he as Romo?

Note to Caprica: I realize you love the little rat, but Gaius is not worth it. At all. Just give it up. Seriously.
Bahaha, love it.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I didn't like her most of the time, but I absolutely loved Starbuck. I was grieving.

I totally get what you mean about not liking her all the time but totally loving her. She's... just that kind of character. ♥

Speaking of, how deliciously awesome is he as Romo?

So awesome! We just finished the season, and I am very OMGWTF about it. But he was lovely. ♥

[icepixie]

Heh. I went back to my original reaction post for Maelstrom, and apparently I was completely sure she was not dead. I think the tip-off was the number of hints in the episode that she was going to die--Aurora, talking with Adama, etc. They tend to kill people for real quite suddenly, not like this. Plus, there were the scenes with her mother about her destiny, which I was pretty sure wasn't "to die pointlessly." *g* I wasn't sure if she was one of the Fab Five or something else...I think around this time, or maybe later, I latched onto a theory that she was an incarnation of a goddess from Kobol, and held pretty tight to it for some time.

Did he just happen to have one in a box on the ship somewhere, or what?

I wondered about that myself. Maybe there are magical tailors somewhere in the fleet who could alter an existing suit on no notice.

BTW, do your DVDs give you the bonus/extended scenes they were airing along with most of the episodes this season? 'Cause you need to watch the one for 3.15 if you haven't. (But DON'T READ THE COMMENTS. So spoily!) It was like having fanfic on my TV! :D

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It did feel like they were laying it on pretty heavy, but... honestly, Starbuck gets such heavy angst sometimes anyway that I was still kind of gob-smacked that they outright blew her up. Or, you know, made us think she'd blown up, at least. o_O I was expecting her to get sucked down to the planet and get left in a "we're certain she's dead" kind of situation where it's obvious to the audience that she's still alive (or at least potentially is).

I latched onto a theory that she was an incarnation of a goddess from Kobol, and held pretty tight to it for some time.

Nothing to say she isn't, at least as far as I'm concerned. I think that sounds like a good explanation of pretty much everything about Kara. ;)

It was like having fanfic on my TV! :D

We do, but we haven't been watching a whole lot of them! I shall have to dig that one in particular up (at work, so I haven't watched the YouTube link yet) - anything with the description of "like fanfic on my TV" definitely has my approval in this context. ♥

[icepixie]

Nothing to say she isn't, at least as far as I'm concerned. I think that sounds like a good explanation of pretty much everything about Kara. ;)

Yep. Given what we know about Cylons by this point, it would be difficult for her to be one. Plus I really, really wanted the polytheism to come to the fore.

Oh, definitely dig up the extended scene. So much fun. :D

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

....Okay, that cut scene is adorable. And you're right - it is just like fanfic. ♥

[icepixie]

Sooooo cute! Hell, in different fandoms, I've pretty much written that scene as fanfic!

[ryunohi.livejournal.com]

I love Mark Sheppard in this. In fact, I think Romo qualifies as my official favorite character of the entire show. But I would try not to think about him as Badger too much. I think it will obscure Romo. (It definitely helped for me that Firefly had gotten so dim in my memory that when I watched these episodes, I didn't make the connection and had basically a blank slate for Romo. But I have watched it again since the end of BSG, and I still stand by the opinion that they're pretty different in many ways.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Heeee. I know, I know - we just watched the end of S3, and he definitely is not Badger, it's just... that when I first saw his face, that was all I could think. ♥

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Starbuck is Aurora! You got there! And I think it fits her perfectly. You know, when I watched this, and then even more so the next episode with her name out of the credits, I was sure she was dead - because EVERYONE, from David Eick to EJO, said she was dead. Even that I might have thought they were pulling our chains a bit if she hadn't immediately started filming a pilot. David Eick's Bionic Woman, so there were wheels within wheels. Still, when an actor starts working on a different show after her character gets blown to bits, you do tend to think, "Maybe she's actually dead."

It was well played, seriously.

So I love Maelstrom, and then totally always skip The Son Also Rises. Another Angeli ep (WHYYY), wherein characters behave like pod people and are dumb. Eh.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Even that I might have thought they were pulling our chains a bit if she hadn't immediately started filming a pilot. David Eick's Bionic Woman, so there were wheels within wheels.

Oh, wow. That is masterful right there - a real work of art. How fantastic that they went to that extent to keep the surprise! ♥

Another Angeli ep (WHYYY), wherein characters behave like pod people and are dumb. Eh.

The man cannot write the characters properly, I swear! I mean, shit - I have never yet written any of the characters, but I'm pretty sure I could find their voices better than he has. It's personally insulting to me the way he butchers them. Bleh.

...OMG just watched last 2 episodes of the season, btw. Flailing reaction post soon to follow. o_O

Gar, not the icon I was headed for.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

I remember one person posting something about how we should take the Bionic Woman pilot rumors with a grain of salt, since it was Eick producing, and everyone shouted him down. "Conspiracy theories are all well and good but you're taking things too far! Just accept it, Starbuck's dead and gone!"

I never did see quite how much he crowed after that.

That's why Angeli's eps in S4 are SO WEIRD, because all of a sudden they're pretty good? And yeah, one totally gets nominated for writing. (It's not the ep from 4.0 I would have chosen, but was probably the most accessible for voters watching blind.)

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Kara = Aurora but also Kara/Leoben = Persephone/Hades (and she did in fact taste that fruit...). Which is kind of awesome, since he's the rabid monotheist, and by kidnapping her he actually drew himself into her polytheistic mythos. And at the same time he's her prophet and she's his messiah. The mythology is a good 75% of the reason why I ship them - the way they fit into each other's mythic narratives even though their mythologies are incompatible.

The other 25% would be the deleted version of the paint!sex scene, which you should definitely watch.

(And I'm actually working on a fic which plays with the goddess-from Kobol idea.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Kara/Leoben = Persephone/Hades (and she did in fact taste that fruit...)

Ohhhhhhh, I like that. You're so right about it - it just fits so well! ♥

The mythology is a good 75% of the reason why I ship them - the way they fit into each other's mythic narratives even though their mythologies are incompatible.

I'm getting that now, yes. Veeeeeery interesting.

(Yay!)