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Battlestar Galactica: Home, Part 2

Laura: "I think that was the lobby."

There was a lot to like about this one. I particularly enjoyed the Adama/Roslin summit, Number Six goosing Gaius while he was having a bran scan, and the way we could tell absolutely nothing about what Sharon would do at any given moment.

Sharon may be the most unpredictable character I've seen in a long time: she is the Cylon Madonna, she is Other, the outcast, and here she was even in red, marked like Hester Prynne. What does she want? Which way will she jump next? All throughout, I kept thinking something terrible was going to happen... and instead, Sharon did the "good robot" thing and rescued everyone. And I still don't trust her as far as I could throw her. She doublecrossed Meier, didn't she? Sharon One was programmed to kill Adama and Sharon Two could do it again at any time, right? And every time she manipulates Helo, I expect her to turn around and stab him or something.

At least one big, confusing issue was resolved: the baby Number Six keeps talking about is Sharon's and Helo's, and she will be born in a Galactica jail cell. And it's a girl. Finally, a Chosen One that's a girl! Why does it have to be a Cylon?

We got more Cylon religious claptrap. "We know more about your religion than you do." and, "We don't worship false idols." I wonder if there's a Queen Cylon somewhere? Maybe she's an actual being masquerading as God, giving Cylons orders from on high? Maybe the Cylon God looks like Number Six.

Speaking of Six, she sure had several interesting looks here:

1. Naked,
2. Disturbingly wholesome, like Jessica Simpson (yes, I know, like Starbuck), and
3. Back in the infamous red dress.

The way Six was playing with Gaius during the brain scan made me wonder why she encouraged him to have one in the first place. Very strange. How is he seeing her? I don't for one minute think that she's just a figment of his guilty conscience or an "angel of God" sent to guide him to the "end of the human race." Well, I take part of that back; I do think she wants to use him to end the human race.

Finally, I really liked the standing stones and that all of the horoscope names and signs had a factual reason to back them up: star map of the sky from Earth. There really was a reason for that stupid arrow, and that harrowing trip to the tomb. Of course, it's not going to be easy to decipher; if it were, they could do a jump, land on Earth, and end the series.

Bits and pieces:

— This week's count: 47,855, down three from last week.

— The Adama-Lee reunion was just lovely. Until Adama saw Sharon, anyway.

— Did Adama leave Tigh in command? Have you learned nothing while unconscious, Bill?

— There was something ironic about the original Apollo trying to kill the new one.

— Since this is television and she's not human, wanna bet Sharon's pregnancy is short?

— Whenever I see a lot of scenes shot in the pouring rain, I thank God that I'm a librarian, not an actor.

— All that cold and damp can't be good for Laura.

Quotes:

Sharon to Chief: "We haven't met, but I remember you." Sharon One didn't download when she died (did she?) so we have no way of knowing how much Sharon Two knows. Looks like she remembers her affair with Chief Tyrol, right? How?

The cranky Dr. Cottle returned, but not for long enough. "Freaking hypochondriac. One on every ship."

Chief: "Topography's for pansies, anyway."

Six: "I'm your subconscious, frakking with your mind."

Adama: "Don't let it go to your head. Adar was a moron."

Adama: "We may have gone down separately, but we're going to come back together. Hopefully, on our feet. But even in body bags, we're going to come back together."

Three out of four stars,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

8 comments:

  1. And this is how the Kobol arc ends. At the 20 episode mark, it seems if the 1st season had reagular legth then Home (2) would be the finale of it.

    Everyone is together for the first time. Noone stranded on a planet. They have a map to Earth not just a myth. Bring on part 2 so to speak. :)

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  2. Good two parter, but I am confused about one thing. I'm sure I just missed something vital.

    Why was the Commander sobbing over Sharon One's body, then choking the life out of Sharon Two?

    Sharon's an enigma wrapped in a mystery, etc. Although, I really liked her statement that she is not programmed and that she makes her own decisions. Really? How does she know? Sharon One certainly didn't.

    This was also a very couple-y two parter. Lee and Kara with the ILY and the kiss. Abama and Laura certainly connected on a much different level, even calling each other by their first names for the first time. Sharon and Helo and their baby. Even Gaius and Six - I liked her much better when she was playing with his mind at the beginning than when she was back to her old tricks at the end.

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  3. ChrisB - on Adama's Sharon / Boomer reaction change, my guess would be something to do with the seven stages of grief - tho I'm not sure what order anger and regret fall into that list! I couldn't see that they explained it any further anyway.

    I liked the 2 parter, though I'm mostly just glad that everyone is together at last! Hopefully we can focus a bit more on the fleet now, which based on episodes like 33 and Water from last year I really enjoy.

    (Also - I'm just going to keep replying to your 2 year old comments ChrisB - hope that's not too odd! :) )

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  4. Baz -- not odd at all. It's been fun following your comments as you watch the series. I had forgotten large swathes of it, so you are bringing it all back.

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  5. So, Sharon seems to know what Adama said to the other Sharon's dead body. How does that work?

    Or was Sharon referring to something in the miniseries?

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  6. I really enjoyed this one. Great to have everybody all in one place, at last, a reconciliation between Mom, Dad and the Kids (Roslin, Bill, Lee and Kara). And what a great way to reveal the way to Earth!

    You're right about Sharon being so intriguingly unpredictable. What I think at this point is that Sharon's motivations are to protect her child, and for some reason she wants to bring that child to Earth. If she only wanted the child, she could have stayed back on Caprica, which would have been considerably safer for both of them. But now that she knows the way to Earth, does she still need Galactica?

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  7. >>"Whenever I see a lot of scenes shot in the pouring rain, I thank God that I'm a librarian, not an actor."
    Y-you mean the Gods, r-right fellow human?

    >>"Adama: "Don't let it go to your head. Adar was a moron.""
    That was funny.

    @ChrisB: "Although, I really liked her statement that she is not programmed and that she makes her own decisions. Really? How does she know?"
    SHE JUST KNOWS, OK??? I like the idea that it's just sheer force of will, and she doesn't honestly 'know' herself. Maybe that's all that's needed. I sadly can't remember much of where original Boomer's headstate was at around the time of the assassination attempt. Oh right... the meeting with those other Sharons... I think they went a long way with killing any conviction original Boomer had against the inevitability of fate. Caprica Sharon didn't have anything frakking with her mind so much. She might be able to stick with herself.

    @Victoria Grossback: "So, Sharon seems to know what Adama said to the other Sharon's dead body. How does that work?"
    As cool/spooky as that was (and it was kinda amusing to see Adama perk back up after almost fainting over Sharon's body from the exertion) it was so frustrating to me! They're not giving us ANYTHING on how downloading works... Was she lying about not knowing Boomer's fate? I figured only 'fresh' bodies would know about the most recent death, until she said that of course.
    ..."Or was Sharon referring to something in the miniseries?"
    She does do something like this, reference something from the miniseries but I don't think this is it (and I hope it's an acceptably vague spoiler if it hasn't happened yet because I can't remember). Definitely felt like a response to Adama's "Why?" to Boomer's corpse.

    I liked this 2 parter and enjoyed the actual process of uniting the separate factions together again. Only issue was that I wasn't really satisfied with the way Adama came about the decision to stop fighting in the first place, even though that ruminating scene with Dualla was nice. I dunno, I accepted it more on basic "I don't want them to fight anymore" terms than anything that felt like a natural... epiphany, or something. Suddenly he just wanted the family back together after picking up the chase again when he woke up. But I let it go as soon as the episode ended, and I thought it was cool what they did with the sequence where the path/clues to Earth was revealed to them in the tomb with that sorta-simulation of already being on Earth. Very nice.

    Sharon hugging Chief... lol. He was almost adorable there, just looking so lost/confused. Did she not know he watched her die at that point and that it'd be inappropriate? I don't remember.

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    Replies
    1. Just to add something I only caught watching the deleted scenes for the season (I'm not even sure why now since I'm barely at the halfway point) I didn't realize that's why I sadly missed Doc Cottle's golden "freaking hypochrondriac, one on every bloody ship..." during the actual episode lol. So good.

      It also offered a nice Elosha scene, which I should be allowed to share since she's dead :( at this point, unless it was a flashback though I don't think it was.
      Elosha tells Roslin she was on the brink of abandoning the priesthood before the Cylons' attack. She'd lost her faith. Then the attack, the destruction of everything. And she prayed for death, prayed she would not have to suffer and struggle with the survivors. Then she found herself administering Roslin the oath of office. And she could see that Roslin was so frightened, so terribly frightened. She found comfort in that, somehow. Because Roslin was frightened, and she was moving forward. And suddenly Elosha's hope was fed, by the hope that's still in Roslin's eyes.
      If that sounded too colorful it's because I was trying to transcribe it accurate without actually using the dialogue format lol, I couldn't be bothered to use quotes for some reason. But yeah, really nice, I wish they kept it in. There's some nice stuff here that's actually not hard to follow out of the episodes themselves even not remembering the context at all. Enriching tiny secondary characters is always welcome, they even have a little something from Zarek's second who died here.

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