Thoughts on the last episode of Battlestar Galactica, season three, act one:
(Cylon) Pattern Recognition - Cylons are humans. They talk a good game about the "human pestilence," but once they took on human bodies, they clearly got the whole beautiful/ugly package called "human nature" as well. They get sick, have emotions like bloodlust and love, enjoy sex, and (most human of all) they have factions. They fight and disagree.
The main thing, maybe the only thing, which makes the Cylon different from humanity, is that they are fearless of death. Their bodies are utterly human, except for one small part (that doesn't even show up under the most rigorous medical scans) that allows for a certain amount of programming, the part that makes the downloading phenomena. A Cylon death releases a signal that transfers information and personality to a Resurrection Ship, though they must be fairly close. My theory is that a low-level transmission between individual Cylons shares something distinctive, an RFID, so that "Athena Eight" knows that this is not just any instance of Eight, but the "Boomer Eight" that shot Adama.
The Goo - It must be like the agar in a Petri dish. The beginning of any meat body always involves some warm, viscous fluid, whether inside an egg or a uterus.
Aaron Douglas' Gut - Audra. "Ouch," is all I can say.
Adama's Terms - He is absolutely ready to destroy the Eye. Better to deny it to the Cylons and take a chance that the Colonials will get to Earth first, even if it means being hounded all the way there, than to give it to the enemy and KNOW that they will get there first. However, another 18 people died in the passage to the Algae Planet, and at some point the attrition has to stop.
Baltar's Mind - I am reminded of something Jamie Bamber said during the roundtable podcast, which is that Baltar is the most seminal, most important human being in the story, and what he does will have more effect on the human race than anyone else, including Adama or Roslyn. For all his megalomania and conniving, treacherous nature, the guy is a genius. He is one of the handful of human beings (e.g. Alan Turing, Nicola Tesla, Einstein) whose intelligence is of such magnitude that it becomes actually strategic. It can affect the course of history.
Anders and Kara - BIG second on Pike's theory that Kara has abuse in her past. No one is born this self-destructive; you start learning it from a very young age. I've seen a lot of relationships like this in my own family, though it is mostly the men who are like Starbuck. It is a machismo thing. I have a bunch of cousins who would say that they are religious, true believers, Christians who tithe and go to church regularly, who at the same time are led around by their dicks and cheat frequently, start side-businesses selling drugs, and hide lots of terrible things they do from the women in their lives, and would never divorce. In turn, these women mostly accept what their men are like. If you have not seen this up close, it's hard to explain. And yes, NO FEELING SORRY FOR DEE, but I feel vindicated that if Billy and Dee had ended up together, the same thing would happen. Billy would be forced into a dilemma: accept that Dee would look for the primal alpha-male quality from other men that he cannot provide, OR divorce her.
# posted by The Salvage Bar @ 3:28 PM
