BSG: The Eye of Jupiter / Rapture
Mar. 5th, 2011 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupTons of plotty developments here: Gaius and Caprica Six are both back on Galactica, Sharon and Helo have Hera back, we find out that the Final Five are apparently the first Cylons that programmed the rest of the Cylons, Kara may have been having visions since she was a wee young thing.
* In particular, the Helo/Sharon scenes were perfect. Perfect, I tell you. Helo shooting his wife dead so she could rescue their daughter? That's what happens when you make your worldbuilding work for you instead of against you.
* Also, it confirms what I suppose I should have realized earlier: Cylons cannot directly destroy themselves. Just like Boomer couldn't commit suicide and D'Anna needed a Centurion to shoot her, Helo had to shoot Sharon because she couldn't do it herself.
And then the scene between Helo and Laura afterward, where she accuses him of sacrificing the security of the entire fleet and he rightly tells her that it's her fault he had any reason to in the first place - yes. Major failure in politicking there, Laura Roslin.
* It seems like one of these days, Helo has to crack. He follows orders better than anyone in the fleet, basically, and he has served the military with everything he's got, but one of these days his duties to his office and to his family are going to be at odds. As a less honorable spacefaring man once said, that'll be an interesting day.
* However, none of this is terribly important, because what we really care about is OMG LEE/KARA AAAANGST! With the "I won't divorce and you won't cheat, so where does that leave us?" conversation (not to mention Kara's "Divorce is breaking a sacred oath, but cheating is just bending the rules" line of reasoning). The eye-rolling was frequent, y'all. The only bright spot was this comment from Sam to Lee:
The LOOK on Lee's face. BWAH HAH HAH.
* It occurs to me that I think Gaius/Six/D'Anna is the first ongoing and explicitly confirmed threesome I have ever seen on TV.
* I'm fairly confused about how the Eye of Jupiter thing was supposed to have worked out. I think the architects of the Temple of Five painted the swirly primary-color Eye of Jupiter pattern as a sort of historical record of their contemporary supernova, and God (or whatever omniscient power we're postulating in this universe) arranged things so that our crew would arrive on the planet right around the time the new supernova exploded, thus cluing them in to the significance of the old one. Right?
I think what really confuses me is that it was blatantly obvious from the very beginning that the swirly pattern painted in the temple was the Eye of Jupiter. I mean, it is the right shape and all. I just didn't know what the significance of the shape was. But it's not clear to me that anyone on the show caught on to this.
I dunno. I'm not sure I actually care about the details; I just dislike being confused. There is no reason all that had to be so convoluted.
* Another thing: I dearly hope the writers have (/had) a firm grasp on how they want the apparently-supernatural elements of their universe to work. There's a lot of visions and portents and scriptural coincidences floating around, and they better have a decent payoff.
Like, there seems to be a connection between the Final Five - which are Cylons developed in the last forty years, I gather - and the human religious Temple of Five. Though why this should be the case when the Cylons don't even believe in the human polytheistic system is beyond me.
* In fact, I'm getting pretty miffed at how much information about the Cylons we're not being told. The entire population of that Cylon base star knows what the Final Five are and also what relation the monotheistic Cylon God has to the human polytheism. This information is key to D'Anna's motivations, to name just one instance, and yet we the audience are still in the dark. The Cylons are now individual characters we're interested in; holding back this kind of knowledge is nothing but cheap storytelling.
* In particular, the Helo/Sharon scenes were perfect. Perfect, I tell you. Helo shooting his wife dead so she could rescue their daughter? That's what happens when you make your worldbuilding work for you instead of against you.
* Also, it confirms what I suppose I should have realized earlier: Cylons cannot directly destroy themselves. Just like Boomer couldn't commit suicide and D'Anna needed a Centurion to shoot her, Helo had to shoot Sharon because she couldn't do it herself.
And then the scene between Helo and Laura afterward, where she accuses him of sacrificing the security of the entire fleet and he rightly tells her that it's her fault he had any reason to in the first place - yes. Major failure in politicking there, Laura Roslin.
* It seems like one of these days, Helo has to crack. He follows orders better than anyone in the fleet, basically, and he has served the military with everything he's got, but one of these days his duties to his office and to his family are going to be at odds. As a less honorable spacefaring man once said, that'll be an interesting day.
* However, none of this is terribly important, because what we really care about is OMG LEE/KARA AAAANGST! With the "I won't divorce and you won't cheat, so where does that leave us?" conversation (not to mention Kara's "Divorce is breaking a sacred oath, but cheating is just bending the rules" line of reasoning). The eye-rolling was frequent, y'all. The only bright spot was this comment from Sam to Lee:
SAM: I know my wife. I've been married to her for a year and a half. What, you think you're the first?
The LOOK on Lee's face. BWAH HAH HAH.
* It occurs to me that I think Gaius/Six/D'Anna is the first ongoing and explicitly confirmed threesome I have ever seen on TV.
* I'm fairly confused about how the Eye of Jupiter thing was supposed to have worked out. I think the architects of the Temple of Five painted the swirly primary-color Eye of Jupiter pattern as a sort of historical record of their contemporary supernova, and God (or whatever omniscient power we're postulating in this universe) arranged things so that our crew would arrive on the planet right around the time the new supernova exploded, thus cluing them in to the significance of the old one. Right?
I think what really confuses me is that it was blatantly obvious from the very beginning that the swirly pattern painted in the temple was the Eye of Jupiter. I mean, it is the right shape and all. I just didn't know what the significance of the shape was. But it's not clear to me that anyone on the show caught on to this.
I dunno. I'm not sure I actually care about the details; I just dislike being confused. There is no reason all that had to be so convoluted.
* Another thing: I dearly hope the writers have (/had) a firm grasp on how they want the apparently-supernatural elements of their universe to work. There's a lot of visions and portents and scriptural coincidences floating around, and they better have a decent payoff.
Like, there seems to be a connection between the Final Five - which are Cylons developed in the last forty years, I gather - and the human religious Temple of Five. Though why this should be the case when the Cylons don't even believe in the human polytheistic system is beyond me.
* In fact, I'm getting pretty miffed at how much information about the Cylons we're not being told. The entire population of that Cylon base star knows what the Final Five are and also what relation the monotheistic Cylon God has to the human polytheism. This information is key to D'Anna's motivations, to name just one instance, and yet we the audience are still in the dark. The Cylons are now individual characters we're interested in; holding back this kind of knowledge is nothing but cheap storytelling.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:04 pm (UTC)Yanno, I always wanted to like Tahmoh Penniket, even when Ballard was being an icky creep, and now I feel totally justified.
I mentioned this up in the entry, but Helo's been occupying a very strange space in this show; he's just about the most sympathetic character, and he's suffered no personal crises of choice. Or rather, presumably he has with regard to Athena, but they all happened off-screen and are comfortably resolved by the time we see him again. In general, he seems fairly stable and solid. And on this show, that seems rather a precarious position for a character.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 07:29 pm (UTC)Agreed on him being the most sympathetic. I think he's also the most mature character on the show- definitely the most mature male at any rate- and that is a very endearing quality in a character.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 04:10 am (UTC)Amen, sister. First Dollhouse and then the whole comics debacle - feh.
I think he's also the most mature character on the show- definitely the most mature male at any rate- and that is a very endearing quality in a character.
Definitely endearing. Certainly he's one of the more selfless characters in the show, and not in a whiny, poor-me way, either. He does what he needs to do and doesn't make a fuss.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 05:35 pm (UTC)Except to agree whole-heartedly that the Helo/Sharon moment was one of those amazing moments that make the annoyance of the quadrangle of doom worth it.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 06:13 pm (UTC)But see, the quadrangle of doom is in no way necessary to the Helo/Sharon moment. We could have gloried in the Helo/Sharon and never had the Lee/Kara at all!
But yes. That was just stunning, and all the more so because it happened to my ship.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 01:53 am (UTC)Oh Lord, I despise that line! I don't know if Sam's telling the truth or not, but if he's just trollin', it's such an utterly shitty thing to say about Kara. And if he is telling the truth, then it doesn't reflect well on him for consciously choosing to put up with it and then getting self-righteous.
Eh. The quadrangle is excruciating, but it does not ship what you'd think it does. If you look closer, it actually craps all over both Kara and Lee in a purposeful way.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 01:57 am (UTC)Oh, I agree. I just don't care. If the show is set on its quadrangle of doom, fine. It can have it. But it doesn't need to waste so much time telling me about it when it could be telling me interesting things, like what on earth Caprica Six and Boomer have been up to all this time.
I may be a little bit bitter here...