battlestar is back, boys & girls. and i couldn’t be happier. despite some extenuating circumstances, we actually did manage to see last night’s episode. i’m still not used to sunday nights, mind you. i hope i’ll manage it someday. someday soon, ideally.
(in my own apartment! OMGz0rz!)
but on to last night’s episode, which was…now that i think of it, everything i could possibly want.
freaking LAST YEAR left us with the olmos getting ready to nuke both his son and his surrogate daughter #523 (starbuck) and surrogate daughter #984 (dualla) and surrogate daughter #1028 (cally)…just to show the cylons that he means business. he is the olmos, hear him roar.
and a whole mess of stuff with three’s religious hallucinations, baltar’s batshit craziness, the search for earth, starbucks-loves-apollo bullshit, and impending doom at the hands of the cylons…
you know, your usual BSG fare. now, with stunning visual effects!
which brings us to this week’s episode…
adama is seriously thisclose to nuking the fuck out of the algae planet, like for real and for serious. and the cylons are totally wigging out. it’s kind of funny to see them surprised or confused by somethings that humans are doing because they usually exude this aura of control & calm. vicious calm. this time, not so much. what’s more, they’re arguing with each other.
cylons back down, adama calls off the nuclear dogs and everything is just a little bit more uncertain. down on the farm (heh), apollo & anders have postponed their pissing contest and are trying to hold off the centurions making their way towards the temple & their base camp. dee is off trying to rescue starbuck and not get totally fuckin’ killed like her lil buddy did. all at apollo’s request — seriously, he’s major stupid these days. and starbuck is in a world of hurt, literally.
and of course, something has happened that i was both anticipating and dreading since practically FOREVER (season 2, actually). helo & boomerwhore ver. 2.0 have discovered that the prez totally stole their baby & then lied about it & then up and lost it! ooopsies!
i was waiting for the murderin’ spree to start, and the madness to accompany it. but it didn’t. not exactly, anyway. here we have boomer/sharon/athena/whore…let’s just call her number 8. that’s what she is, afterall. and here she’s gone and forsaken the cylons for the people of galactica & for helo. even though she totally gave up on helo in season 2 and probably would again if it didn’t work to her benefit to be with him.
i’ll get to this in a minute, but i think that the entire 8 series is predisposed to manipulation for survival. a case of the “grass is always greener” & “what serves me better”, in fact, a lot like baltar.
so helo & number 8 are mourning their child…again. and hating on the whole Us vs. Them thing…again. and it’s all really tiresome because it’s totally just eating away at helo completely and there isn’t going to be much good left in him pretty soon. because he is, so good…but she’s ruining him. this whole thing: the cylon thing, the baby thing, the human thing…it’s ruining him. making him crazy and desperate and lost. making him dangerous. now more than ever, i think, helo is a loose cannon.
so when number 8 asks him to shoot her, so that she can download on base star and see their baby, he does it. and how fucked up in the head can it make you to shoot the person you “love with all your heart” and hold them while they die? who cares if she’ll be back (in theory) or she’ll download into a new body or whatever.
she dies. he kills her. that does not make for a sound mental faculty.
(plus, he totally called the president down. and while she is guilty, and she knows it…i know a tiny part of her wants to airlock him again…and for every other time he’s stepped out of line)
and so here, why i hate boomer. prefaced by one of the few things from twop that is somewhat coherent:
You’re Sharon, looking at Boomer. She’s the girl that took the fall, the girl they manufactured to get broken. She’s the girl you can’t even hate, and when people call you by her name you just look down and say sadly, “That was someone else.” She’s the warped mirror that says you could have been her, and inside you somewhere there’s a voice still saying, “We love you, Sharon.” She’s your Sasha, and your Kacey, and your secret Young Kara. She’s the thing you ran from on Old Caprica and the thing you’re still running from, and she’s looking at you.
You’re Boomer, looking at Sharon. She’s the girl that won the race, wearing the uniform you used to wear, the girl the Admiral adores and the girl who could quiet Hera’s crying if she were there. She’s the original, you’re the copy. You almost got boxed for trying to pretend you were this girl, on Old Caprica, and every dream you wish you didn’t have at night, every fantasy you wish you didn’t entertain anymore: she’s living them. She’s a commissioned officer and a beloved pilot. Everybody that you wanted to love you, everybody that turned on you when you were so confused you couldn’t even begin to figure out your broken life, all those people now love her instead. The acceptance you were denied, she glories in. Her life isn’t broken, it’s gloriously fixed. That impossible balance you could never walk, between human and Cylon, she’s walking it with strength and beauty. She’s denying you free movement in the halls that you used to call home. She’s standing on the ground where you died and looking at you with pity and love; nobody wants the embarrassment of absolution. She’s everything you ever wanted, in the worst possible way.
people read too fucking much into it.
the cylons are not human. they’re not. they never were. they never will be. i think the only model that clearly illustrates this is the cavil model. to some extent the number 6es do, but they more clearly illustrate how cylon & human cannot seamlessly meld. the religious fervor brings out a wonderfully violent streak, and a bit of madness. i think humanity is a bug in the cylon programming. a glitch in the system, really.
if you think about it in simplistic terms: the cylons are machines. machines are logical. humans are not machines. humans are not inherently logical. irrational thought/action/behavior introduced into a logical environment causes malfunctions.
see also: d’biers model, leoben model, boomer model, six model.
they’re grotesque caricatures of humanity. they’re also frightening and beautiful (except for the 8s).
and now boomer/sharon/athena/whores.
boomer is, and always will be, a whore. an evil, manipulative whore. yes, she was a sleeper model, yes she didn’t know from the get-go that she was a cylon, but you know what? she fuckin’ was figuring it out and didn’t do anything. she fucking knew, and didn’t do anything. she fuckin’ fucked up killing herself (back in season 1) because of her self-absorption. if she really, truly loved galactica and the people on it, she would’ve taken herself out of commission one way or another. she wouldn’t have been such a pussy and decided she liked living as a filthy traitor more.
even with her whole ‘humans and cylons should live in peace’ stint in new caprica, she still fucked everyone over. she had no problems putting people in what were effectively detention centers, death camps, cages. it was easier to turn on the humans she claimed to love than give up the ease of a cylon life.
now the second boomer/sharon/athena/whore…this one turned on her fellow cylons from the start. because she had helo and thought she could get a free ride back to galactica, and she had to have known that the other one shot the olmos, because everyone knew, and she remembered it later. timing is weird in the whole thing, but she knew. and i sincerely think she would do it all over again if she could.
so things on galactica were rough in captivity and there was a whole mess of bullshit with her pregnancy and her baby and her hating the humans so hard. so she turned on helo, she turned him away…she gave up because things weren’t easy anymore (this probably didn’t help helo any). just like flipping a switch.
then a year has passed, humanity totally had it rough in the first number 8’s detention center fun fest down on new caprica and it turns out that galactica is a better option, so now the second number 8 is all gung-ho galactica and “you can trust me” and shit. it’s retarded & nauseating.
then a cylon virus hits and when she realizes she’s totally immune thanks to her creepy half-breed spawn, she turns her back on the entirety of the cylons just.like.that. (another thing that fucks up poor helo’s head)
she makes caprica six think she’s forsaken the humans on galactica for her child & for the cylons…ultimately ending up with caprica six in the brig on galactica, and she barely even looks back.
the two number 8s on the base star was probably the best because a.) you see what an evil whore she really is (and they really are ALL THE SAME) and b.) caprica snaps her filthy neck so satisfyingly.
bottom line, the number 8 models have the tenacious drive for survival no matter what and no matter the cost — this is how they are very similar to baltar, minus the insanely ridiculous insanity/craziness. the number 8 models are extremely manipulative. boomer manipulated the chief & galactica, then later her own cylons into the whole new caprica thing, then the number 8 on galactica with information about the spawn. sharon manipulated the hell out of helo, then the cylons, then helo, then galactica, then helo, then helo again, then helo again, then the cylons, then caprica six, and probably helo again somewhere along the line. the number 8 models are extremely manipulative. and they will turn on you if they think it will serve their purpose better. and they are all the same. fundamentally, they are the same. boomer is a whore and each and every cylon model number 8 is a whore too.
notice how all number 6s are completely fierce and frightening? they all converge on their religious values, they have mild differences but they are on the whole similar. sure caprica six can love — even if it is baltar — but she does it with the same fervor as everything any other six model does.
all the leobens are creepy and a bit crazed. fanatics, really. starbuck-obsessed fanatics.
all the dorals are detached and suave in a way that feels slimy. they also are prone to quick acts of violence without remorse (and they probably all wish they had’ve shot baltar in the head back on new caprica).
all the threes are absolutely & completely crazy in a way that completely eclipses baltar’s crazy. hell, it incorporates it. sure, it started with one three (d’anna d’biers) but it eventually engulfed them all.
all the cavils are logical, a bit scary, and ruthless. they also all look like creepy old granpas.
all the simons are…never there. seriously, did they just not cast that guy again? he’s never there!
therefore, when you think about it…all the cylon models within their different model archetypes are fundamentally the same. at the base level they are all the same. one model with certain proclivities has those proclivities & dispositions throughout the entire series. there is precious little deviation within a series.
therefore, all the number 8 models — all the boomer/sharon/athena/whores — are all the same, fundamentally & deep down within. they all have the makings of a manipulative bitchmonster.
but isn’t the number 6 model more violent & dangerous?
no.
the number six model makes no mistakes about what she does, she never pretends to be something else, and she is completely honest about how much or little she likes you. she’ll kill you without questioning it and won’t bother to lie about why she did it. same with d’anna, even she never lied about what she is, why she does what she does, etc.
the number 8 model is fraught with lies and manipulation, and more of a liability to the cylons and humans alike. the number 8 models have more identity crises than all the other models put together.
and i hate them.
so seeing two of them die in last night’s episode was extremely satisfying.
and all i’m really dreading now, is when helo can’t take it anymore and does something really disastrous.
also, baltar anyone getting pistol-whipped is always great.
Soooo…. unlike TWOP, you don’t read too much into this stuff… eh?