Scattered and Valley of Darkness

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

There wasn’t time for me to write up a detailed response to last week’s season premiere, but the storylines carry through so beautifully to this week that I’ll include some reactions here. Scattered was true to its title: the Colonial forces are scattered in both location and purpose. The fleet is split after an emergency jump goes awry, the survivors of the Raptor crash attempt to find sanctuary on Kobol, and Kara and Helo lurk amid the ruins of Caprica. There was no break after the events of Kobol’s Last Gleaming; Commander Adama is still gravely wounded and in his absence Tigh leads the fleet. Shockingly, Scattered managed to make a computer network attack into a nerve-wracking experience thanks to damn fine editing. I was biting my nails while Gaeta struggled to complete the jump calculations, and I cried when they turned out to be correct.


Kobol

Chief Tyrol, Cally, and Tarn’s return trip to Crashdown and the other survivors was grim last week. I honestly can’t recall seeing such a vivid portrayal of bullets striking a body since Saving Private Ryan. I knew that Tarn was dead the moment the first bullet hit, but Tyrol couldn’t accept his crewman’s fate so quickly. The horror desecrated the brilliant green of primordial forest, gore staining the mossy dirt. I loved Cally’s efforts to focus Tyrol, how she made him leave Tarn and continue on with the medkit. Tyrol is drowning in guilt, no matter how undeserved. Cally yells at him, “Talk to me, you motherfrakker!” which breaks his fugue. They collapse in laughter and tears and speculate on the wounded Socinus’ recovery. I had to be reminded that Socinus is the crewman who lied for Tyrol when the Chief came under suspicion during Litmus, connecting them forever. Wasn’t Socinus’ release from the brig a deleted scene from Kobol’s Last Gleaming? Tyrol says Socinus is both an idiot and a tough kid, holding onto a blind faith that their efforts will make a difference. But they arrive back at Crashdown’s temporary base too late; the medic says the bleeding has gone on too long and all they can do is end Socinus’ suffering. Am I the only one who was angry at her for this? There are other ways of delivering the coup de gràce that don’t require overdosing a patient on “morpha.” Suffocation comes to mind. So Tyrol not only has to give Tarn’s dogtags to the clueless Crashdown, he also administers the drug that will send Socinus to the heavens, telling him they’re about to be rescued. Tyrol offers false hope. His man, his hand to end it, his lies told out of duty and loyalty to ease Socinus’ final journey.

Another liar continues to flirt with dreamland. Baltar has a vision that they are rescued and safe, Raptors flying patrol above while Adama assures him of their quick return to Galactica. The music here was especially effective, full of foreboding. Baltar holds the baby Six showed him in his arms, swaddled in white like his mother. Adama asks, “Is this the shape of things to come?” and takes the baby. Baltar can only follow and watch helplessly while Adama walks into a lake amid rushes and pushes the baby below the surface of the water, drowning it. Adama is established here as judge of the Cylon’s vision of the future, a vision he would undoubtedly oppose with every fiber of his being. There are also parallels to myth, to Moses drifting down the river or Perseus and his mother floating in a locked trunk after being condemned.

Baltar wakes when Six prods him, only to discover his sylvan glade is carpeted with human skulls. Six tells him the Scriptures are a lie to cover the savagery of humanity. She repeats the familiar words, “All of this has happened before” and all of it “will happen again,” giving me a glimpse of the Colonial past where the humans rebelled against their gods just as the Cylons now oppose the humans. The words, the images are so evocative yet insubstantial at the same time. True comprehension remains outside my grasp, slipping away like mist.

Caprica

Starbuck and Helo have to escape Cylon-occupied Caprica, and both have to come to terms with Boomer’s true nature. Kara let loose her anger at one point, telling Helo that “men are so stupid,” but her ire was also directed at herself for believing in Cylon deception. Helo is frustrated that Kara won’t give an inch, trying to explain that he was on the run with Sharon, that she “seemed so real” and “all the little things” were right. Kara still won’t yield, although she does unbend far enough to admit that Cylons can make all of them look like idiots.

They plan tentatively to find and steal a Raptor to return to the fleet. And a loose end from last season is tied up: Sharon told Helo that the Cylons were collecting and incinerating bodies, thus the pristine state of the streets. I’d complained about the still-standing buildings of Caprica City, which still bug, but at least we now know why there aren’t corpses all over the place. It’s a retcon I can accept.

Kara’s place in Delphi is a revelation. The walls are dingy, and graffiti covers them with words and a bulls eye depicted in yellow, red, and blue. She is very casual about admitting to her artwork, trying not to let Helo read anything into it. The images aren’t studied or formal; I’ve read discussion on how this fits with the Starbuck we’ve seen to date, and I’m with those who find it intriguing. The act of creating art can express emotions that would otherwise remain buried. I myself draw with pastels, from instinct. I haven’t studied art (beyond elementary composition for one photography class), and my drawings are seldom representative. With writing, I know the vocabulary, the structure, the tricks: I could (and have) discuss anything from fiction to critical essays. But art is primal, a layering of color and form until something inside me looks at the paper and knows it is complete. I can see Kara being the same way. She knows everything there is know about piloting Vipers. She could break one down and rebuild it with her bare hands. But give her paint and canvas, or walls, and she doesn’t have to think anymore.

Her father’s piano music creates that same calm for Kara. She loads a disk into her terrifically retro disk player and loses herself in the flow of notes. Barber’s Adagio for Strings has that effect on me, along with some Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi works. Someone identified this as Philip Glass and I think I love him now. The minimalists have never been to my taste except in special circumstances, but the music! The music! Kara is happy and thrilled for the first time in forever; she needs these few minutes of solace before facing the world again. She still hurts from her fight with Six over the Arrow of Apollo (always next to her). She takes off her uniform jacket and pulls on a ratty coat, relaxing back into her couch.

Helo has discovered that Kara didn’t clean out her refrigerator prior to her last departure. I have visions of her planning to toss everything and then being dragged out for a night of drinking before shipping out. She woke up too late and too hung-over to do more than grab her flight bag and run for the shuttle. Helo hurts too, his knee hasn’t been right since the initial attack. He sits and looks so hot that I’d have jumped him then and there, but Kara only lights up a cigar. She tries to put her place down and says she “never pined” for it. Then came this gem of insight: “Everyone I know is fighting to get back what they had. I’m fighting because I don’t know how to do anything else.” Oh Kara. I love you so.

Their respite over, Starbuck finds a new ride. She smirks at Helo and asks if he’s tired of walking; the look on her face is identical to the one she used on Tigh playing cards right before she asked about his wife. Helo laughs in delight, like nothing she could do would surprise him. She has a truck, which must have had killer maintenance, because it starts on the first try and they’re off to find a way off Caprica.

Galactica

Col. Tigh has been struggling to live up to Bill Adama’s trust. He knows he doesn’t deserve it, if last week’s flashbacks are to be believed, but Tigh’s loyalty is absolute. He has taken steps to ensure the survival of the fleet, even if he knows Adama would never have approved. During the battle at the fleet’s old location, a new Cylon ship managed to elude Vipers and crash into the Galactica’s starboard flight pod. The ship was full of Cylon Centurians, who try to wreak havoc on the battlestar, aided by a virus that penetrated Gaeta’s firewall (I wish I could make that sound less dirty) and shut down power all over the ship. The last actions Galactica takes before the virus disrupts communications is to warn the fleet that they’ve been boarded and no ship is to approach them. It took until the end of the episode for me to realize that this meant the wounded Adama was still waiting for Doctor Cottle’s return.

Tigh tries direct the crew from CIC, but they’re isolated. He knows the likely tactics the Cylons will follow: take control of two key areas, decompress the ship to kill everyone, and then turn the Galactica’s guns on the fleet. He tracks events along with Gaeta, but it the end it is chance that saves them.

The attempt to remove President Roslin from office by military force has left chaos in its wake. Roslin is imprisoned in the brig, and Lee Adama’s actions in her defense were for naught. His determination has turned to uncertainty, leaving him adrift. Last week, his father’s blood gloved his hands and forearms while he sat dejected in his cell. After giving his parole to Tigh, he was permitted to continue serving as CAG, and led his Viper pilots out to fight the Cylons. When Valley of Darkness opens, the nuggets are jubilant, celebrating their safe return to Galactica, but Lee knows that they “let one through.” They walk through the halls together, the nuggets telling tales about their exploits in battle, only to meet sudden, bloody death. This was so scary! The dark, the glowing eye of the Centurion, the attack with no warning. Poor nuggets.

I began to think about the experience of most of the Colonial survivors: they haven’t really seen Cylons in person before, have they? Not the walking chrome toasters of the first war at least, who were probably used as boogeymen to scare children into brushing their teeth. Instead, they’ve survived bombs dropped from afar, fought ships in the black of space, or seen Cylons that looked human. This boarding becomes visceral very fast, a struggle against their oldest enemy.

Roslin hears the chaos outside her cell, and demands to be let free. She’s already facing death because of her cancer; she won’t be trapped with nowhere to run. Corporal Gainer (sp?), who asked her to lead him in prayer during the previous Cylon fighter attack, is overawed by Roslin’s insistence. He frees her, but before they can seek safer ground Lee appears. He tells her to stay alive and to go to the sickbay, which is the safest spot on the ship. The moment where she tells him, “Good luck, Captain. May the Lords protect you,” was rife with chemistry for me, poor Lee/Laura ‘shipper that I am.

Lee has a plan to retake the ship and lays it out to his paltry forces before it all goes to hell. They have limited munitions that are effective against the Centurions. Although I’ve never seen all of it, the claustrophobia of their progress through the hallways reminded me of Das Boot.

Roslin and her guard try to elude their enemy in the dark. Sound, not sight, became key here – footsteps, gunfire, random thumps. They stumble over a room filled with bodies, including a non-responsive Dualla. While Billy deals with Dualla, Roslin is still thinking. She makes the Corporal think of an alternate route when they are blocked from continuing. She doesn’t know that the other way will take her into a rendezvous with Lee, who has at last made contact with Col. Tigh. Apollo has been ordered to aft damage control “right frakking now,” which gave us the hilarious moment when he repeated Tigh’s orders: “Aft damage control, RFN, aye.”

Lee prepares to defend aft damage control, piling storage boxes up to create cover and positioning his forces. He even tries to buck up morale, telling one crewman that they need to “roll the hard six” – one of his father’s sayings. He doesn’t know what it means, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. There’s a litany of what he has to do (“Head shot, reload”) that he chants to stay focused while awaiting the Centurions attack. The Centurions are scary! Those machine gun rounds from their arms echo through the corridors, and their footsteps thud. Billy, hiding with Roslin, flips the safety on the gun Apollo gave him back in the brig and pulls the trigger by accident. Roslin pushes Billy down while the Cylons shoot at them, and I was terrified he’d died. I wouldn’t put it past this show.

The firefight is on, a confused mess of flashes and non-stop pings. At last, Lee shoots a Centurion while it jumps over him, and the battle is over. They’ve won. Damn. They all should have been deafened by the gunfire, but the demands of drama grant them the ability to hear each other’s words. The crewman with Lee displays the same giddy joy that the nuggets did earlier, but once again Lee knows what their victory cost, dead comrades all around him. Roslin and Billy both survived, and the Corporal is awestruck to see holes piercing the fabric of her jacket. This is further proof of his faith; “The gods must be watching over” Roslin.

Although they play a relatively minor role in the larger scheme of things, Dualla and Billy are no less dear to me. Their initial reunion (after two weeks? What? Didn’t they dance together at the end of Colonial Day, which led right into Kobol’s Last Gleaming? I’m confused about the timeline now!) was adorable, even with the tension based on their opposing loyalties. And their second meeting, during the Cylon incursion, allowed them to find common ground once again. Billy tries to rouse Dualla, who may be concussed and is definitely in shock. Roslin’s suggestion of using Dualla’s rank gets a response, and she joins their group for the final showdown.

After the battle, everyone is reunited in sickbay. Dualla lies in a bed, her brow bandaged. She and Billy have reconnected, and she tells him to listen what she’s saying now instead of what she said before. They kiss and it’s so sweet I want to draw hearts and flowers around their initials on my notebook with a pink glitter pen. Billy teases her a bit: “I didn’t hear,” and she tells him to close the curtain for a precious moment of privacy.

Roslin, Tigh, and Lee stand over Adama, awaiting Doc Cottle’s arrival. Roslin reassures Lee that his father will be well and goes off to her cell. She’s doing this on her own terms, and she makes sure Tigh knows it. Tigh still can’t believe that Lee “sided with that woman against the old man.” His loyalty is to a person, and to that person forever, while Lee’s is to principles and ideals. Tigh tells Lee that he’s not fit to wear a uniform, and Lee says he’s right. But Lee also knows Tigh’s past, his weakness, his drinking, and says that he isn’t fit either. They hold a long, last stare, knowing that their fates will be decided by the man lying in the bed beside them. Once again, he will be their judge, just like with Six’s hybrid baby.

Last Thoughts

I’ve seen some people commenting that the season so far is too grim for them. Am I alone in seeing hope everywhere? I don’t know where it comes from, but for all the obstacles set before them, I don’t doubt that the Colonial fleet will find a safe harbor. The journey will be long and difficult, beset with obstacles, but they will find a new home. And amidst the darkness, there are always flashes of humor and love.