BSG Finale

[vaznetti]

OMG! I loved that! I was a little worried because I'd gathered from some of the commentary that people weren't 100% enthused, but it was awesome!

Bad President Roslin! She got away rather lightly for a woman who tried to steal an election; after all, she still has her reputation, which is more than she deserves. And go Admiral Adama, for doing the right thing. I really did like the way the election was handled, and I like that Gaius won because he found an issue that everyone agreed with him on. (And regarding the demographic question -- if they're serious about increasing the human population, they have to settle down somewhere. I mean, obviously we as viewers know that this isn't the right planet to settle on because the show isn't set up like that -- but withing the context of the show there's no way to know that. They don't get the soundtrack music of impending doom, or whatever.)

I actually sat there during that whole sequence shaking my finger at the screen and saying "No! Bad Tigh/Dualla/Roslin! You must be punished!"

I was rather amused that the priest turned out to be a cylon after all.

You know, the thing about Anders is that he looks a lot like Lee. No wonder Lee is a little pissed off by that whole thing, although I have to say that pissiness is a state which seems to come pretty naturally to Lee Adama.

Poor Gina. I know that blowing up thousands of people along with yourself is wrong and all that, but she just seemed so... pained. Poor Gina. The Sixes are far and away the most interesting of the Cylons, and it's almost certainly down to the actress. Each Six is a little different.

I could not have loved the New Caprica set up more. The chief as a union leader, and Cally as his very pregnant white trash wife! Baltar as the sleazy, power-drugged president, with Gaeta as his loyal aide! (Oddly, I didn't see Zarek standing with baltar at the end; I wonder where he is?) And now, Starbuck as leader of the New Resistance. I wonder if she'll be any good at it. And Roslin really is a schoolteacher now! Ha! Poor Saul and Ellen hose a really bad time to jump ship, though.

Interesting, by the way, that all the ships in the fleet were still manned, and they all jumped away. So the Adamas have been taking their responsibilities to keep everything ticking over rather well. (OMG! The mustache! I am full of love! And Starbuck's hair, which is better than a clock!)

Basically, just assume I'm full of love. I'm a little worried about seeing what everyone else had to say, because I don't want my sheer insane joy to be spoiled.

Comments

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

I'm still sitting here blinking, listening to the white noise in my head, more than 12 hours later. Not ready to commit to *liking* it, but not *not* either, if that makes any sense.

Loved the case study in the disastrous consequences of doing the right thing.

Still stuck with my thought from mid-episode: "Hey, they AU'd themselves!"

All very strange, and sooner or later I'll come out of wtf-paralysis and generate opinions....

[vaznetti]

I am a very uncritical television viewer -- if I buy the characters and the premise, I'm generally happy to go along with plot as it develops, and this is even more true of relationships, although that's the point at which a lot of fans seem to have the greatest trouble suspending disbelief.

Loved the case study in the disastrous consequences of doing the right thing.

I know... but what were they going to do? Nothing good was going to come of stealing the election, and the arguments for settling down (at least for a little while) were stronger than they seemed.

Your icon reminds me of how much I loved the scene between Adama and Tigh. And the mustache!

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

Right there with you - I'm largely uncritical, especially with relationships. But this half-season I've really been teetering on the edge of "Ron Moore - Crazy Like A Fox, or Just Crazy?" Still not ready to make that call...

And, yeah, the Adama/Tigh was one of my favorite bits from the AU/hallucination/temporal anomaly/canon half hour... :P

[vaznetti]

Yeah, this season has had its rough moments. Rough half? Rough third? Something like that. But I have posts from the end of Alias Season 3 where I was writing things like, "They can still pull the season out of the abyss! Really!" Hope springs eternal, and a good season finale goes a long way with me.

Of course, if it's a hallucination, whose is it? Kara, still back on Caprica? Baltar, asleep? Those are the two suggestions I've seen. I'm kind of hoping for canon, myself, because they're all so miserable. And so screwed.

[cija.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it's not a dream, but I did think it might be for a minute when they first showed Baltar waking up in his office with the oil painting of him on the wall and the whores in the background. It would have been kind of hilarious.

I don't know why, when I'm so critical and bitchy about everything else, but I think I'm the only person I know who doesn't mind magic prophecy hybrid children or 'it was all a dream' retcon explanations. I get a kick out of them every time.

[joran.livejournal.com]

Poor Gina. I know that blowing up thousands of people along with yourself is wrong and all that, but she just seemed so... pained. Poor Gina.

I agree, there. The sex scene was brutal. I'm not sure what her long-term motivations were. To get Baltar to stay? To get him to leave? But she sold her body to buy time, and it was horrible to watch her so revolted.

The Six/Baltar scene at the end was brilliant. They both completely had my sympathy in that moment, humanity be damned.

(hi! I was just friendsfriends surfing...0

[vaznetti]

Hi! Nice to see you.

Oh, poor Gina. It was so hard to watch that scene. And it really made me hate Baltar a little more (I've grown to hate him less over the season, but that scene was just so cruel. And Baltar is a man who seems incapable of ever doing the right thing.)

I think she wanted him to leave her alone -- but to have ot do it like that.

Six's face when she saw Baltar again? So amazing. But they'll destroy the world to have each other, you know it.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Oh, how interesting. I thought Gina slept with him because she loved him--it was her way of saying goodbye before the final betrayal.

tzikeh and sdwolfpup should be squee-safe. I'm not sure I am. ;)

[vaznetti]

I thought Gina slept with him because she loved him

Yeah, I really didn't get that from their scene. I think the most I could say is that she slept with him because she knew that he desired her, and that she felt some kind of obligation. But I think that really, she needed him to stop thinking about her, or at least thinking about what she might be planning.

But that certainly explains why I've seen people commenting negatively on Cally ending up with Tyrol (although I thought she'd been in love with him since the beginning, and after what he did to her he wasn't in a position to refuse her anything), but not on the Gina/Baltar scene, which I found much more disturbing.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I saw Gina as re-enacting the first Six's behavior--not as a conscious trick, but as a kind of dramatic irony, with some key differences. That is, she clearly didn't desire Baltar--really I have seldom hated him more than for that psychotic self-absorption, which given that he's guilty of genocide perhaps indicates I need better priorities--but I thought she loved him, seduced him, and used him to betray humanity to the Cylons--exactly like the first Six.

I love Cally/Tyrol because I think it is going to be a horrible trainwreck.

[vaznetti]

I love Cally/Tyrol because I think it is going to be a horrible trainwreck.

When Boomer decides to pay Tyrol a visit, for old times sake, and finds him shacked up with Cally? Oh yes.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

When Boomer decides to pay Tyrol a visit, for old times sake, and finds him shacked up with Cally? Oh yes.

Precisely.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Hee. Mely + trainwreck relationships = OTP! I think you said the same thing to me about Spike/Buffy after OMWF. *g*

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I am predictable, alas.

[cija.livejournal.com]

I thought they were both disturbing - the Cally/Tyrol thing not because he beat her up (I didn't see it, but I understand from reading the recap that he really didn't mean to) but because she took the occasion of the beating to express her love.

after what he did to her he wasn't in a position to refuse her anything)

- but thinking of it as the result of some smart calculation on her part, like this, makes it more interesting and acceptable to me.

The Gina/Baltar scene I found too disturbing to comment on, and I didn't really know what to say about it.

[vaznetti]

but thinking of it as the result of some smart calculation on her part, like this, makes it more interesting and acceptable to me.

I'm not sure that Cally is always self-conscious enough to see how she's manipulating Tyrol -- or trying to, anyway. But part of her knows that she's not his first choice, and her forgiveness is the most powerful weapon she has against him.

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

I've only just finished watching it. Sigh. So much love for this episode. (And indeed the two previous to it.)

I've been avoiding spoilers unless they pop up right in front of me, so although I'd heard vaguely something about a jump forward in time, I knew nothing about what was likely to take place in this episode, and it was a wild ride. Every 10-15 minutes they pulled the rug out from under our feet and twisted things around again. And I loved that, even though it means that I'm going to have to watch it again a couple of times before everything sinks in. There was just too much stuff there for my brain to comprehend and contain in a single sitting.

I love that Baltar was essentially hoist with his own petard. He gave that bomb to Gina; it was the bomb that attracted the attention of the Cylons to his "safe" new home.

And I can't wait to see the judgement for his sins descend upon him. Roslin and co have already got their just deserts for their election fiddling. I so admired Adama when he went to her, she tried to persuade him to let it slide, and he wouldn't. I also notice that the moustache only manifests itself when he's at his lowest ebb; give him a fully functioning, fully manned battlestar again and it'll come off the next time he looks in the bathroom mirror.

My theory is that Zarek is sitting pretty up in one of those ships that jumped away, controlling the black market from on high. He wanted to pull the strings of power, and the planet was a great selling point to get his man in place; I can't think for a moment that he'd actually want to live there though.

And if he's not there, just ask Ellen. She'll know where he is.

As for the priest... I loved that he really was at those Cylon meetings he claimed last week never to have seen the Chief at. And how funny that the one Cylon model that likes to take the part of a religious figure (in both incarnations that we've seen so far) is also a model that doesn't believe in a god.

The only downside I can see is that it's going to be an awfully long wait until we see how they write themselves back out of all those corners next season.

[vaznetti]

So you think the mustache may be gone by October? I wouldn't be sorry to see that happen.

Yes, the way everything came full circle to bite Gaius Baltar on the ass was quite a thing to see. If only the rest of humanity didn't have to suffer along with him, though! It will certainly be interesting to watch him deal with a corporeal Six again, as well.

Mm. The idea of Zarek up on the fleet is an interesting one -- and actually, we need someone for Adama to work with/against while he's out there, so you may well be right. Because everyone else (aside from Sharon, presumably still in Galactica's brig) was accounted for on planet, I think. And I bet Ellen wishes that she were still up there too.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the episode, and I speak as someone who really felt as though the second half of this year was faltering seriously, at least up until the fantastic "Downloaded." Although my appreciation is not wholly uncritical -- I found Adama's complacency particularly jarring and unconvincing -- overall I thought it was a tight episode, suspenseful and emotional, and I LOVE the jump-ahead. The show has needed to trust in its own story for a while now, and I feel like, with this, BSG is finally wholly absorbed in its own mythos instead of being a mirror of the U.S. in 2001. I think we'll get a lot of background on how everyone got there from here, and we also get to avoid the boring "building mud huts" year of storytelling.

FWIW, I thought Gina was trying, in some way, to repay Baltar for his kindness, but I thought it was a sacrifice she made for him, not a gesture of true love or passion. Baltar's rapt self-absorption kept him from seeing that.

[vaznetti]

The jump-ahead worked very well, didn't it? I'm so pleased to have missed the first year of settlement, and I really like how we're now dropped in the middle of a rapidly changing situation. I feel like the season was sort of treading water for most of the second half, until suddenly with "Downloaded" things began to move forward again, but I think this season finale did a nice job of integrating character and plot development. It shows some trust in their storytelling, but also in us as viewers.

I adore in medias res as a storytelling device.

[hobbes75.livejournal.com]

I loved it and don't know how I will survive until October, which says something for this episode since up until "Downloaded" I hadn't been totally thrilled with the second half of the season.

I'm not sure what to make of the Gina/Baltar scene. I don't think she loved him, and she did seem a little disgusted at points with what she was doing, but at the same time I feel like it went a little beyond just fulfiling an obligation she felt she had. Tricia Helfer is such a damn good actress to show so many different emotions in one scene. Someone needs to give that woman an Emmy.

"Cally as his very pregnant white trash wife!" So true! That's exactly what she looked like. Not sure how I feel about this relationship. We shall see come October.

[vaznetti]

Cally and Tyrol are going to be such a train wreck, but I could not stop laughing at that scene, where she's standing there in her coat and that skanky top shouting "shut the frak up!" so that people could hear Tyrol. Such a beautiful moment.

I found the Gina/Baltar scene painful to watch -- whatever her motives, she looked so reluctant, especially at the first.

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

I am so far behind because I was gone this weekend, but I have this to say: I think Starbuck will be good at it, and not just because I want her to be. I think she's smart enough to do it (she's been shown to be excellent at planning missions since season one) and she's defiant enough to care.

[vaznetti]

I think you're right, as it happens. And I'm looking forward to watching her do it.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I just finished watching the finale about 5 minutes ago. My head is going bzzzt bzzzzt bzzzzt now. I am pretty much in agreement with what has been said here. When they stole the election, and Roslin admitted to it, my jaw dropped. I really wasn't prepared for her to do that, but given her streak of ruthlessness, it wasn't totally out of character. Baltar as President = disaster, so she felt justified, I guess.
The Starbuck/Anders/Lee scene made me uncomfortable; I know Starbuck was drunk, but she seemed so gleeful about making Lee watch, perhaps it was unintentional, but still. Lee and Dualla just don't have enough history to make me very interested in them, but I don't dislike them as a couple. I think Tyrol married Cally because he felt guilty, and because she forgave him. At least the population is starting to make babies...so when Laura is ready to start marking that whiteboard again, there will be a few more souls to add. I wonder if the Cylons will discover baby Hera?
Loved how Adama was still on Galactica, and Lee on Pegasus...loyal to the fleet to the end.
Baltar is doomed. I thought the reaction from Six when she saw him was remarkable. Trisha Helfer is a fine actress indeed.
I wonder how many of the people wish they were still on the ships now?
All in all a very good episode with a lot of stuff left to bring into season 3.