BSG “Sometimes A Great Notion” – Honey, I’m Home
After months of waiting, we finally got our BSG fix. Wow – what a trip. Now I’m sure that many discussions are probably swirling around the apparent reveal of who the Final Cylon is (I say apparent since Moore and Eick have been known to throw a few wicked curve balls our way to let us know to not take anything for granted). But for me, there were other moments in yesterday’s episode which reminded me why I love this show so much. For those who haven’t seen the episode and don’t want the ride to be spoiled, don’t read further.
One thing I loved about this episode was how it met head-on the reality that after 4 years of fighting the Cylons and struggling to survive with only the dream of finding this new home Earth was all in vain. It showcased brilliantly that danger of putting all one’s hope in a dream, in something that you don’t work to attain, but instead just hope is out there for you to magically find. Watching Adama walking through the corridors of Galactica and seeing two crewman going for each other’s throats while others just stare in a state of dazed disconnect – and his not caring about any of it – was shocking and wonderful. In that brief moment, we got a full picture of a society losing its last vestige of hope and will to press forward and just basically giving up under the weight.
And speaking of wonderful, how amazing was that scene between Adama and Roslyn in her room when he finds her burning the sacred texts of Pythia? The 180-degree turnaround in this character was wonderful and I can’t wait to see where they are going to take her. For the last 4 years, I think her character has been the most consistent in terms of staying the course or having a sense of direction. Now, she’s become a ship without a rudder and it should be interesting to see how that change affects her over the course of the remaining episodes.
I also loved that scene with Adama and Tigh – then again, to be frank, I love any scene that features these two characters. Edward James Olmos and Michael Hogan and just exude chemistry together; it’s no stretch of the imagination to see these two as men who’ve shared a common history and have been through some pretty bad patches together. Yesterday’s scene was particularly poignant because here was Adama going to see Tigh, a man he once valued as his best friend until he found out he was one of the enemy, with the clear intention that he wants Tigh to be the one to help him end it. I’m sure Adama could have easily have found someone else on board who’d willingly put a gun to Adama’s head. After all, wasn’t it Adama who stood before all of them, in front of the bodies of their fallen comrades, and promised them all a new life on this fabled planet called Earth? Oh, yeah – there’s got to be some payback for that setup. But clearly for Adama, despite the fact that his best-friend’s true nature is something he despises, he still needs his friend. And the fact that Adama had to trash talk Tigh’s wife demonstrated that even Adama knew his friend Tigh wouldn’t kill him willingly despite everything, that his loyalty to Adama was still there. No, the only way he could get Tigh to pull that trigger would be to goad his friend into doing it out of anger, but as we saw, even that ploy didn’t work. Fantastic stuff.
Naturally, the most shocking moment had to be the death of Dee. What a great set-up they gave for this scene – they didn’t linger on it at all, she just waited for Gaeta to leave and then – Bam! I also thought it was a brilliant stroke in how they filmed it, having Gaeta pleading for a medic over and over and then switching views to show us this growing pool of blood. Even as they went to commercial, we knew she was gone. I have to admit though, I’m wondering if the number of survivors was planned ahead to be ending on the number one, because watching Lee wipe the number “1″ off that white board was just heart-rending. Of course, having Dee kill herself at that point was the perfect touch, despite the fact that I really liked her character, because of how well it encapsulated the sentiment of everyone else in the fleet regarding their future. Thanks to Lee, Dualla had a moment where she was reminded of what it was like to be happy, to just enjoy being alive. And she realized that after that time they just spent together, she’d never feel that way again, so what would be the point of continuing. The fact that they had Gaeta there to comment about how Dee was glowing added to how dramatic and shocking her death was. Personally, I never liked how they killed off Calli a few episodes ago because frankly, you could see her demise coming well before she entered the airlock. But I’m sure with Dee’s death, they caught everyone off-guard.
And what of Ellen Tigh being the Final Cylon? Well, to be honest, my initial reaction was that it couldn’t be her since, dramatically, what’s so interesting about the final Cylon being a now-dead character? Thinking about it more this morning, I realized there might be some clever thinking behind making Ellen the Final Cylon. Since the reveal at last season’s end of four of the Final Five Cylons, people have been buzzing over who they think could be the Final Cylon, coming up with all sorts of theories and referring back to cryptic lines or scenes from episodes past. If Ellen is the Final Cylon, perhaps this is Moore and Eick’s way of basically dispensing with this issue, to demonstrate that their series isn’t about finding out who the Final Cylon is. Rather, it’s about this wonderful mélange of characters and how they collectively and individually face these sometimes insurmountable problems. For me at least, that’s what I enjoy so much about this series.
In any case, I’m going to leave this open to you, the readers, to comment on. What did you think of this episode? What did you like about it, or even didn’t like about it? As I wrote in “For More Days Until It’s Frakkin’ Friday”, my take on these final ten episodes is that they’re like a dessert at the end of a wonderful meal where some people are going to love it and others not so much. So, I’m interested in reading the thoughts of those of you who are checking out my BSG entries (and you know you who are) about what you thought about this beginning of the end.
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