BSG “Daybreak, Part 1” – The End Is Found In Where We Began
It is often said that to reach the end of any journey, one needs to look back and see where it all began. It’s from this vantage point that the first part of the BSG series finale “Daybreak, Part 1” starts out and in doing such, provides us with some greater insight into these characters and through it, the significance of the choices they’ve made and probably will make in the final two hours of this remarkable drama series.
Watching the flashback scenes of what life was like on Caprica, we now learn that many of the series characters had in fact lost much of what mattered to them well before the fall of the thirteen colonies. The Kara we see traipsing around the apartment getting the place ready for her first dinner with her fiancé’s brother is almost unrecognizable from the Starbuck character we’ve known from the start, making the psychological impact of Zack’s death and her sense of responsibility for her part in it that much more palpable than it was before. When Adama wraps his arm around Kara later in the episode, reminding her that no matter what has happened she is still his daughter, serves to reinforce this reality, that those who knew Kara when she was engaged to Zack have seen the tectonic shift in her emotional grounding. Adama’s gentle words to Kara at this point also serves to remind her and all of us that the bond they have over that shared grief transcends any concerns over the nature of Kara’s existence, that such issues ultimately don’t change who she is or what she means to those around her.
Compare this now to the Lee Adama we’re shown during those days on Caprica. Instead of the self-assured, do-gooder we’re accustomed to seeing, we see a Lee who’s clearly lost without a purpose, stumbling about his apartment in a drunken stupor. The scene where he finds that pigeon in his home that he vainly tries to chase away is evocative of the listlessness he clearly feels at this point in his life. The imagery of the bird seeing freedom just outside those windows but being unable to figure out how to get out there reflects Lee’s state of mind at this point, with his annoyed utterance “stupid frakkin’ bird” being said as much to himself as it is to the pigeon. Clearly, Lee is trapped in his current life on Caprica as much as that bird is trapped in his house. But just as he is unable to get the bird out to freedom, he’s also incapable of freeing himself from whatever shackles are holding him down in his life on Caprica. In this short scene, Moore reveals to us that even before this journey had begun, Lee was in many ways like the bird in his apartment, fluttering around the place trying to figure how to get out to a place where he could be free (remember his admission to Dee about how he didn’t want to be rescued when his Viper was destroyed during the attack on the Cylon Resurrection ship?). The sudden scene switch to Lee as the head of the fleet’s government and his obvious comfort in addressing the concerns and fears of all those around him tells us that finally, the bird had broken out from this cage of glass and metal and is now flying about, free in the air where it belongs.
We also get some valuable insight into the character of Gaius and with it perhaps a glimmer of the true nature of Head Six. In the first scenes featuring Gaius and Caprica Six in the limousine, Caprica Six makes the observation that unlike her, Gaius is a person who prefers that others do things for him, something that becomes more apparent with Gaius’ attempts to bribe the nurse to stay with his dad for another night. Of course, this is hardly a revelation in regards to Gaius since his narcissistic attitude was clearly evident to everyone around him from the beginning. And yet, from the scenes with Gaius’ dad, we finally understand the nature of his narcissism – it’s not that he’s in love with himself as it is he’s in love with what he’s transformed himself into and in particular, how it removes him from the working-class, ‘people of the land’ lineage he originally came from. This move by Gaius to distance himself from his true origins is no doubt the key reason for the spite and hatred Gaius and his dad have for each other as both now represent what the other despises most. The sad irony is that this also makes it impossible for Gaius to truly understand his father who, as Caprica Six points out, is in many ways like Gaius in being a complicated man who is nonetheless capable of being contented “by the most simple of things”.
The fact that Caprica Six was capable of making his father happy, something that was clearly elusive for Gaius, might in some ways explain the existence of Head Six and Gaius’ burgeoning need for Caprica Six’s aid. As the only person who ever seemed to understand his father, it’s possible that Gaius created Head Six as a means to sustain this persona he’s created for himself while at the same time seeking out the one person who was able to help his father and thus perhaps himself. In some ways even, Head Six is the bridge between his true origins and the reality he has built for himself. That’s why it’s clear that his hesitation to join Adama’s mission to rescue Hera has less to do with a selfless act for the greater good than his desire to try to gain some ground with Caprica Six in the hopes that she might be able to help him in the same way she did for his father. His conversations with Lee regarding his followers having a seat on the government reinforce the comment Caprica Six made to Gaius in last week’s episode of still being the same person he was on Caprica; despite all the twists and turns that Gaius has taken over the last four years, he is still in that same position of wanting others to do the work for him.
But the most dramatic revelation had to be in the character of Roslyn, not only because the event that leads her to that emotional coldness that’s been her source of strength to keep pushing ahead is a powerful and heartrending one, but also because it highlights the significance of her admission in last week’s episode regarding her sentiments about finding home again in Adama. In that first scene at the end of her younger sister’s baby shower, we clearly see a Laura Roslyn we’ve never seen before, one that’s infused with a joy and effervescence for life and family. When the police arrive to inform her of the death of her entire family – her dad and her two sisters – that moment when she turns away and addresses the officers to leave, you could feel the chill entering the room; it’s a testament to Mary McDonnell’s performance that in that moment, her inflection sounded very much like the Laura Roslyn we’ve grown accustomed to hearing over these last four years.
Indeed, the subsequent scenes showing Roslyn tiding up her place – a task her sister told her to stop and take a break from – evoked the no-nonsense, let’s-just-move-on Roslyn we know, the one who told Adama a few episodes back how he needed “to clear his head” to deal with the unpleasant realities that they faced. With this character reveal, we now understand the weight of those words, and that possibly it’s something that’s been her mantra ever since that painful day back on Caprica when her whole world was torn asunder. The next scene showing Roslyn walking into the fountain, resting against the rock formation and opening her arms to the cascading water is powerful in its imagery, prefaced by the bubbling of grief shown on Laura’s face before she takes her walk into the wading pool of the fountain. Her embrace of the falling water was her physically clearing her head of this pain, of washing herself of her old life, a life that now had no meaning given the loss of her whole family. Indeed, when she picks up that picture of her dad and her two sisters, we see her abruptly shaking her head, as if attempting to deny herself that this should have any meaning or importance to her.
Although Adama’s scene on Caprica is rather cryptic for the moment (I’m assuming we’ll be given more insight into the relevance of that short scene in next week’s two-hour finale), we still are given a wonderful Adama moment in this episode on board the Galactica after he encounters Hotdog collecting the pictures of all the lost pilots. As Adama walks down this corridor, looking at the images left on the walls because there’s no one left who knows who these individuals are, it’s a poignant reminder of what the fleet is about to leave behind. As Gaius admits to Lee in an earlier scene, Galactica has been a repository for both the fleet’s hopes as well as a reminder of the life they left behind. This corridor was very much what a memorial is – a tangible connector to some past loss that we don’t want to forget or lose touch with. And yet, the almost barren walls reflect the reality that they now have to cut ties with that past life and accept the reality of starting anew, with some new way to define who or what they are. The moment when Adama stops dead in his tracks after seeing the picture of Hera is an important one because he realizes that Hera is not another fragment from their past lives; instead, she is very much a reflection of the new lives they must now start, if not perhaps the very key to that new life. Adama’s fixed stance just outside the corridor for such a long time reflects his own internal battle to not only finally accept this reality, but also his coming to the realization that he has one final mission to complete, one last person who is in need of his saving them.
Granted there were some gaping plot holes like how they were able to find the location of the Cylon Colony – simply asking Anders while he’s hooked up for that information is just a tad too sloppy. Although this is the first of a two-part episode, I doubt they’re going to explain this relevant point further as there are larger series issues that need to be resolved before the series ends. Another moment that was equally disappointing was the casual scene shown between Helo and Tyrol. Given Tyrol’s part in the abduction of Hera, I couldn’t see why Helo would even want to speak to Tyrol, let alone what he could gain from such a conversation. Yes, it was nice to see that Tyrol was being held accountable for his part in Boomer’s escape. However, his release soon after at the episode’s end made this scene feel a bit too much like a throwaway one that really would have served the storyline better had it been included in last week’s episode. Regardless, given the continued stellar performances of the actors, it’s easy to move past these points in order to enjoy the more significant portions of this part of the final episode.
When BSG resumed earlier this year, Moore and Eick assured fans that ‘all would be revealed’. In “Daybreak, Part 1”, they certainly have gone about doing just that by shedding light into who these characters were before the apocalypse, not only so we can better appreciate the transformation they have undergone, but also where they are headed. As I said at the start of this review, the only way to truly appreciate how this journey will end is to understand how it all first began.
Some other posts you may enjoy:
- BSG “Daybreak, Part 2” – My Final BSG Review, Part 2
- BSG “Islanded in a Stream of Stars” – Finding One’s Place To Call Home
- BSG “Daybreak, Part 2” – My Final BSG Review, Part 1
- BSG “Daybreak, Part 2” – My Final BSG Review, The Conclusion
- BSG “Deadlock” – Between Hate and Love
- BSG “Blood on the Scales” – Off Bloody Spot, Off
Battlestar Galactica is a show about parents and children, the cycles we keep repeating – a child of a drunk parent becomes a drunk, the deadbeat father that has a son that will become the deadbeat. One can change when they have a moment of self revelation, when they see who they are and choose to either cross the line or just repeat the cycle where the son becomes the father and the father becomes the son. I love you BSG – so say we all!!!
Helo is too good-hearted to hate Tyrol for his mistake — at least at first. He knows exactly what it's like to do stupid, insubordinate things for the love of an Eight. (The two of them had sort of bonded over their respective Cylon relationships in Season 2.) Unfortunately, Boomer has nailed the coffin closed on Tyrol's better nature; he's pure cynic now.
Good job spotting the point of Roslin's Caprica flashback. I couldn't find one. I still don't think it was worth the time, but at least they weren't just giving McDonnell something to do.
True, but the problem is that by not showing the fallout from Tyrol's actions – both in terms of how Helo and Athena react to it as well as Tyrol himself – we're denied a very important moment.
You bring up a good point about Helo and Tyrol bonding earlier when they attempted to save Athena from being raped. That fact should have weighed heavily on Tyrol because, as he states in this episode, he now sees all Eight models as being the same. Had they taken the time last week to address this, perhaps the short scene here between these two would've felt more significant than to merely point out that Tyrol was among the people pardoned by Adama as a way to gain numbers to join his mission to save Hera.
I do think Roslyn's flashback scenes are necessary (except for the one where she gets the call about the blind date – that really didn't serve much purpose since we already got in the previous scene her transformation into the Laura Roslyn we've known from the start) because it's important that we realize that she wasn't always this way and her willingness to open herself to her feelings of being content is not a change to something new, but rather a return to who she really is behind that facade she's been wearing all this time.
I loved this episode for all the reasons that you mentioned. It was rife with powerful imagery and glimpses into the lives of these characters. I know that when you and I talked, you had mentioned that some BSG fans were not happy with it because it was a slower episode, but as we've experienced over the past 4 years, Moore and Eick love the calm before the storm.
To be honest, I'm glad that we didn't see Tyrol getting in trouble…again. For me, it worked that we saw him in the brig as a result of his actions. Over the past 4 years, we've seen plenty of times where Tyrol has been dressed down by Adama or Roslin and with everything that happened in the episode, I think it would have broken the flow of the episode.
As for seeing Anders…eh. Again, I was ok with not seeing the scene where he reveals where the location of the colony. I don't see it as a significantly important part of the episode and appreciated that the editor didn't feel like we needed to be lead from Point A to Point B by the nose. It was enough that they said that he let them know so we could get on with the rest of the stuff. Then again, I've never really been a fan of the Anders character so that may have played into those feelings a little. ;D
As for seeing Anders…eh. Again, I was ok with not seeing the scene where he reveals where the location of the colony. I don’t see it as a significantly important part of the episode and appreciated that the editor didn’t feel like we needed to be lead from Point A to Point B by the nose. It was enough that they said that he let them know so we could get on with the rest of the stuff. Then again, I’ve never really been a fan of the Anders character so that may have played into those feelings a little. ;D
I disagree and let me explain why. In the previous episode “Islanded in a Stream of Stars”, they made it clear that there was no way to find Hera now that Cavill had moved the Cylon colony to an unknown location. The scene where Helo pleaded with Adama (a man who knows what it feels like to lose a child) to let him take a Raptor so he could try to find his child was meant to reinforce that sense of despair that there was no way to find Hera. And yet, from the perspective of the audience, we knew they would find a way, that they had to if they were going to wrap up all the major threads still left unanswered. And clearly as Hera appears to be the key to all this, it’s simply not a plot detail that can be so easily glossed over. Besides which, they had in this episode the perfect opportunity to reveal such information within the context of the series mythology. Here comes my elaboration on how that could’ve been done.
First of all, remember that at the start of last week’s episode, Adama was clear about his having “it up to here with destiny”. That’s pretty much in tune with Adama’s character because he’s never been a part of this metaphysical element that’s been coursing throughout the series. So, it’s only natural for him to not put any stock into this since he’s never been a believer of it. That alone makes it hard to understand how Adama would know, over the Final Four and Kara, what question to ask Anders or to trust that Anders would even know the answer.
The second point to recall is how Kara decided at the end of “Someone to Watch Over Me” that Anders was the key to figuring out what’s the message behind the song “All Along the Watchtower”. In terms of the series mythology, this song has played a significant part – it re-activated the Final Four and it helped them find the way to Earth. In last week’s episode, we see her sitting by Anders’ side trying to come up with all sorts of mathematical possibilities that might translate the music notes into something useful, although interestingly enough, she’s disconnected Anders so he’s not really ‘conscious’ and thus able to help her.
And now, here’s the punchline for what should have happened – when Adama arrives to seek help from Anders and Kara, he should have asked Kara to re-plug Anders but not have a clue as to what to do next. Again, this character has been on the outside of this whole metaphysical side of the series mythology and he should feel like he’s grasping for straws here, as opposed to having a clear idea of what to do next. As I wrote above in my review, the reason he now wants to save Hera is because he realizes that she deserves the same chance as he’s given everyone else in the fleet, of having him come to their aid. After Adama admits to Kara that he doesn’t know what’s he doing there or what he hopes to accomplish, Kara starts inadvertently humming the notes she’s been staring at all this time. After a point, Anders reacts to this and his nonsensical rambling turns into a clear indication that he knows where Hera is. Not so much a list of co-ordinates, but perhaps Hera’s name and a cryptic remark about ‘skirting the maw of a giant’. Kara and Adama react to this, with Kara asking Anders ‘Sam, what did you say?’. And we cut the scene and the episode continues as seen last week.
See, this way, we realize why Anders was able to give this information because, once again, it ties back to this song and its clear significance as the source behind how the events are being revealed. We don’t have to understand why hearing this song gets Anders to locate this information since we’ve already seen how it caused the Final Four to realize their true identities as well as locate Cylon Earth. Having it also tell us where Hera is would hardly be much of a surprise at this point; indeed, it would fit into the puzzle they’ve created so far very well (of course, I’m expecting the explanation for this song’s relevance to appear in tomorrow night’s episode as it’s too integral to the series to be overlooked). This would also build on the repeated idea that Kara Thrace is the harbinger of death for the human race. By having Kara’s humming the song be the key to unlocking the location of where Hera is, she becomes the reason why they can now go after Hera and ultimately face whatever human cost they will suffer in tomorrow’s episode.
This is why I found the reveal of Hera’s whereabouts disappointing as they had a clear set-up in place to they address it and add to the importance of this song while at the same time, maintain the characters in their positions with respect to how they’ve dealt with this whole “destiny” notion. A little tighter editing and an economy of words would have allowed for such a powerful moment that would lend itself to the ultimate tragedy that this series will inevitably have us face.
I disagree with the analysis of Baltar somewhat. I don't think Baltar is lazy; rather, his rejection of his working class origins includes a rejection of manual labor, menial tasks such as driving or nursing an elderly parent. Moreover, it also shows the altruistic act that Lee Adama accused Baltar of being incapable of performing. Baltar has rejected his past, doesn't get on with his father at all, yet despite this, has, it would seem, brought his father to Caprica, bought him an apartment, and pays nurses to look after him. He doesn't gain anything from this act, not even thanks from his father. But he does it nonetheless. Even though Caprica Six finds Baltar's father a nursing home where he is happy, her reasons for doing this are, in ironic contrast, not altruistic in the least. Arguably, she finds him a nursing home, because he represents a distraction for Baltar, and thus a distraction to her mission, which is to gain access to the defense mainframe.
I think Head Six represents a great deal more than simply an expression of unconscious feelings within Baltar, which is what he first theorizes she is, in the very first episode. Also, what she actually is, and represents, as Ron D Moore has already said, is a messenger from God, which presumably also applies to Head Baltar who speaks to Caprica Six.
I agree with the comments made about Helo and Tyrol having a bond through their love of Boomer / Athena. In the beginning, it was Athena who pretended to be Boomer in her seduction of Helo. This is then more recently reversed, with Boomer pretending to be Athena, and having sex with Helo, as Boomer watches helplessly, before kidnapping Hera. What Tyrol says to Helo I think will have greater resonance in the last episode. Tyrol says Boomer, Athena, (and another name I can't remember) they're all the same, because we made them all the same. In a negative sense, this means that they can't be trusted. But in a positive sense, it means that if all the 8s are the same, then they will all feel that emotional conflict, and that love for Hera, which would explain why Boomer was crying, after handing Hera over to Cavil. There's a possibility that her love for Hera will conflict with her loyalty to Cavil, and she'll fight to save Hera.
In terms of Roslyn, this was the first time I've really understood and sympathized so fully with this character. I completely agree that it reveals how tragedy has led her to the cold, distant place she occupies as President. Her Christ-like pose also resonates with Baltar's Christ-like pose when he first understands that he's an instrument of God. I read somewhere else a very interesting interpretation of their relationship. Roslyn's destiny is to lead the people, to save them, but in the process she loses much of her humanity. Baltar's destiny is the same, but in the process, he gains his humanity. (I wish I'd thought of that lol).
On Anders, it struck me that as he speaks, and like the other hybrid, he sounds as though he is orating poetry, or the lyrics of a song.
Aha, I missed how showing Tyrol in jail gave us an example of somebody Adama pardoned so he could join the mission. I still think he will, by the way. He's too good a man and owes Adama too much to stay behind. Besides, the mission can't leave till Baltar joins, as we all know he's going to.
Incidentally, having enjoyed your comments on the episode, I'd like to point you to some of my own BSG Season 4 observations (and just-barely-in-time finale speculation):
http://www.fiveminute.net/forums/showpost.php?p=7…