io9
I like watching sexy ladies torture sweaty men as much as the next person, but Friday night's Battlestar Galactica took that scenario way too far. Called "Escape Velocity," the episode delved deeply into Baltar's religious beliefs and Tyrol's post-Cally bitterness, but was also packed with enough randomly-generated sadomasochism to fill a bag of holding. Is there a way to wash your eyes out with soap? You'll want to know after enduring several scenes with lines like, "Pain is pleasure," and "I want the pain." Spoilers ahead, if you can bear it.
Right away, you could tell this was going to be an episode about getting religion because we begin with a fairly long religious ritual from Cally's funeral, complete with Tyrol speechifying in a stripey shirt I think he got at Banana Republic. There are statues of gods and goddesses, talk about death, and a priestess being all mystical. Roslin is in the audience looking totally blissed out, and she tells Adama it's the kind of funeral she likes. Adama isn't so crazy about it, which is reason number one why I wish this episode had been about him or the atheist Cavils instead of the god-addled of the fleet.
After the funeral, Tyrol immediately starts getting the crazy eye. He stares freakishly at Foster during the funeral, and later starts bugging out in a meeting with Foster and Tigh. He has no clue that Foster actually killed Cally, and keeps pointing out that she killed herself because she thought Foster was having an affair with him. Foster gives him a whole trip about how they are Cylons and therefore can just shut their guilt off, and embrace their strength. "Think of all we can do," she says. "We're not human — we're stronger."
Meanwhile, Tigh is having "I killed my wife" flashbacks and keeps unhelpfully explaining to Tyrol that it's "natural for a man to feel this way," and that it's ultra-mega-manly to go batshit over your dead wife. Oh, and just to make Tyrol feel extra-better, he adds that Tyrol will be seeing Cally "every day" for the rest of his life. Thanks for helping, pops. Seems like both the "kill your guilt" Cylon solution and the "embrace your pain" human solution pretty much suck ass.
No surprise that Tyrol finally loses it completely. But before we go there, let's talk about all the what-the-hell action going down between Foster and Baltar, and Tigh and Caprica Six.
Foster goes to visit Baltar with her new Creepy Cylon Powers in full effect, finding him lying in his silky bed among the folk rock lady ninjas. (Roslin later refers to them as the "girly groupie sex whatever they are," bless her cancer-ridden heart.) Foster snuggles up next to the freaked-out Baltar and proceeds to give a whole bizarro speech about how good is evil, evil is good, and everybody is perfect. To demonstrate, she starts yanking hairs out of Baltar's head while stroking his nether regions. She babbles something about how pain and pleasure can intermingle, making the two things indistinguishable. Somehow this all adds up to more hair-pulling, and more nether-region-stroking, and Baltar stammering something about sure he's kind of horny but that doesn't mean everybody is perfect.
Are you getting all that? Pain-plus-pleasure adds up to "we're all perfect" and that's supposed to mean something bad — or good? Luckily you won't have to think about it for very long because just when things are getting too nauseating for words there's a raid on the folk rock ninja ladies' palace. A bunch of militia guys throw tear gas into the hold, then beat the shit out of the nice ladies and rape them while Baltar hides in the rafters and Foster stares accusingly at him. Kinda weird that the militia guys keep attacking when they realize the President's closest adviser is hanging out right there, but whatever.
And now things go to serious yuck. In the aftermath of the militia attack, the Six in Baltar's head eggs him on with delusions of grandeur, telling him it's time to "take a stand." By take a stand, apparently she means that Baltar should take a bunch of his followers, run inside the churchy place where the militia guys are taking in a religious ritual, and start screaming about how they are all serial rapists and dickwads. He throws around a bunch of incense and pretty much immediately gets dragged away by some handy guards.
While he's in prison, Roslin takes away the right of assembly. As she tells the Quorum, she thinks Baltar's people are just provoking attacks by getting together in that cargo hold with all the silky blankets and crystals and the hippie-Buddhist-pagan shrine to Baltar which I think is covered in hot pepper lights and photographs from Rush album covers but probably really isn't. Lee and everybody else push back against Roslin, demanding right of assembly back again.
Meanwhile, Tigh keeps unhingedly visiting Caprica Six in prison. Every day, he comes and yells something angry at her and hallucinates that she's turning into his wife. Six acts all holy and forgiving and keeps asking if she can do something for him or if he needs something. Finally they have the Ultra Meaningful Confrontation, where Six says, "Hey, I'm just like you — I feel things, I have veins in my arms," and he says, "No you're not like me," even though IRONY OF IRONIES we know that he is.
And that's when things get seriously fucking twisted. Tigh tells the guards to leave so he can be with Six alone, and asks her the question that's really on his mind. Can she help him get rid of the pain he feels? This is actually a great moment in an episode of what the hell, because we're watching Tigh struggle with a pain that transcends human vs. Cylon. Plus, we're not sure if Six knows he's a fellow Cylon or not, and it's kind of like he's asking her whether she can give him a lesson in having a Cylon brain.
At that moment Six reveals some interesting stuff, such as the fact that Cylon brains are based on human ones and that by reverse-engineering human brains Cylons have learned a few things about human psychology that humans don't know. For instance, she claims that pain is what teaches people who they are, as well as teaching them about morality. She tells the story of how falling in love with Baltar and realizing that she could lose him is what made her realize that what the Cylons had done to the humans was wrong — and that she won't turn off her pain or guilt because she wants to remember that lesson.
It's a fairly interesting, moving scene until Six touches Tigh's face sort of mind-meld-style, and says, "I can give you clarity again." Then she punches him in the face. Over and over again. While saying stuff like, "Pain gives you clarity. It tells you who you are. Do you feel the clarity?" I mean, she wearing this sexy dress and frakkin straddling Tigh, pounding his bloody face, and asking about clarity. And then Tigh moans, "More."
"Oh," says Six, "I was wrong. I know what you need." And then she starts making out with Tigh. WHAT THE HELL.
This would all have been moderately more bearable if it weren't for the fact that at the very same time, we are treated to a parallel scene where the Six in Baltar's head is getting him beaten to a bloody pulp too. It's like a sadomasochism sundae with two flavors of Six and two flavors of fucked-up sweaty dudes. When Baltar gets out of prison, a bunch of guards refuse to let him return to folk rock ninja central because right of assembly has been revoked. So the Six in his head urges him to try to get in, promising he won't be hurt. Of course he is hurt, and is being beaten with rifle butts when Lee arrives in the nick of time to say that right of assembly has been restored.
So you've got bloody Tigh lying there sucking face with Six, and you've got bloody Baltar stumbling into his sex cult cave after the police brutality orgy. I know it's supposed to be this meaningful moment of parallel experience and transcendence-through-pain, but it just comes across as clumsy and wrong and gross.
The episode was partly rescued by one disturbing scene towards the end where Tyrol gets drunk off his ass and tells Adama — loudly, in the middle of the bar — that he never loved Cally. It's a raw and truthful moment in an episode that's mostly a bloody mess of overwrought symbolism. Adama is trying to comfort Tyrol over his loss, and Tyrol just busts out with a whole screaming speech about how Cally wasn't an angel, and he didn't love her — he just settled for her. And then he raises his voice more, so everyone can hear, and yells, "How many of us settled because the people we really loved were dead or dying or Cylons!" At that moment, when those of us who have been tuning in for four seasons remember Tyrol's intense affair with the original Sharon Cylon, the scene is genuinely moving. Because the humans have been so reduced that even their love lives are impoverished.
While it makes for good drama, Tyrol's outburst doesn't improve the poor guy's life. In fact, it gets him fired after he challenges Adama to send him off the ship. Probably a good idea to fire Tyrol anyway, since he's been so tripped out that he is making a bunch of mistakes when he fixes the Vipers in the engineering bay.
As the episode concludes, we're in an incredibly awful, bleak place. Tyrol has just flushed his career down the toilet, and Tigh has just had something way more intense than sex with Six. And Baltar is giving yet another religious-maniac speech to the folk rock ninja ladies, while Lee and the cops and Foster watch. Covered in blood, leaking his usual tears, he declares that his true belief is that we are all perfect. It's the same speech Foster gave him earlier, and which he resisted.
I'm still unclear on why the "we're all perfect" thing is supposed to be bad, but clearly it is. So of course Baltar is all over it.
Comments
Is it just me, or is BSG going a little Matrix Revisited/Reloaded on us?
All this trippy mind fuck sort of shit coming down the pipe when I was expecting more psuedo political wrangling from the Cylon civil war.
Or maybe I'm just not getting it.........
(Not that this would be the first time, I need a clue attached to a 3 tonne weight, dropped from 3 Kilometres up with a 3 hours long instructional video sometimes)
One of your best pieces, editor.
I think the most important line was when six explained what pain was for: learning. I think the most important lessons I've learned were the result of pain. Not physical pain, but emotional. But physical pain can help a person discover their emotional pain. I hit the FF button a few times with this ep.
I think that at some point Michael Hogan had a conversation with the BSG TPTB that went something like this.
TPTB: We're going to reveal that Tigh is a Cylon.
Hogan: No way. Absolutely not.
TPTB: You'll get to make out with Tricia Helfer.
Hogan: Okay then.
io9, sometimes I think you don't GET BSG. Sol is grieving for his wife, that he killed. six is the one that looks like her and since he is now a cylon, he is trying to also connect with other cyclons, without the crew knowing. Also she, six, killed millions, and Sol has also killed. He is relating to her on these levels:
1) They are cyclons
2) They have loved and lost
3) They have killed and regret it
She beats him to give him clarity, like when somebody just looses it and has to "let it all hang out". He begs her for more, remember that? He WANTS to hurt and through hurt/pain he will find release because he has held his pain in. Then she kisses him, to give him more closure, because he has lost his love. It is complex, but come on io9, pay attention. BSG isn't just a shoot em up sci fi show, there is depth in characters.
Baltar's stuff, well, it is cool to. He is delving more and more in his new faith and now with the president's order overturned, she is losing face and power. Plus what was REALLY COOL, you see Six, the one in his head, physically pick him up. That was cool, now she is more than just a "figment of his imagination". She physically interacted with him that was seen by others. Really cool.
It was a filler episode, to develop characters, but it was a good one. Wash you eyes with soap? Wash your mind seeing as you can't see what they are getting at.
Dear io9ers,
OK, so I've decided it's time to explore this Battlestar Galactica "phenomenon" more deeply, and here is the thing: I have the miniseries on DVD, and am planning to watch it with the missus and then have her Netflix the first season.
But. Is there overlap between the miniseries DVDs and the Season 1 DVDs? Because I don't want the first disc to show up in the mailbox only to have to be sent right back since we've seen everything on it already.
Surely someone here can answer this for me, and then finally -- finally -- I can start watching BSG in earnest (after which point I can focus on finding out whether Tony Soprano dies or not and who killed Laura Palmer).
Yours, warmly,
Moffie
Yeah... that episode was... hmmmm... yeah...
Hoping we're back on track next week.
@moff: No overlap. The "miniseries" could just as well be called episodes 1 & 2.
@moff: Season 1 has the miniseries plus the other 13 episodes. For some reason Season 2 was split into two sets, Season 3 is whole again.
@sandmanfvr: I also think Six realized something about his wife, which is why kissing him was more pain that kicking his ass.
@moff: The season 1 DVD set has the miniseries with it So skip disk 1.
@spookcountry: hey mate, trippy mind fuck is what BSG has been for the beginning. enjoy the ride.
BTW - for me, this "we're all perfect" is a little too much BS. But maybe they're going somewhere with it.
@moff: Yes there is an overlap, the whole mini-series is on the season 1 discs.
*Spoiler Warning!*
Baltar and Tyler Durden are the same guy! ...Or is that Baltar and Six are the same guy? ....gotta be something like that..
@avconsumer: Disregard my above comment, I was unawares that the S1 set included the "miniseries." Apparently they ARE Ep. 1 & 2. :P
Moff, there is overlap because with the release of the first season, the powers that be added the mini-series to the DVDs.
So your best bet is hold onto your mini-series and just start with the Netflix DVDs. Or watch your mini-series, and when you add the BSG season one discs to your queue, skip the first disc of season one.
Enjoy!
@avconsumer, Log1c, Gyrus & TheRemedy: I am confused now on exactly what to do, but leaning toward Gyrus's advice. So: Watch miniseries, have bride Netflix disc two of Season One and everything thereafter?
@MadJackDeacon: Fantastic. Thanks, everyone!
Also: Annalee, if you could just stop posting anything BSG-related until I'm caught up (aiming for mid-August), that would be really, really cool. I'm trying to avoid spoilers, and I want to be extra-careful.
""Oh," says Six, "I was wrong. I know what you need." And then she starts making out with Tigh. WHAT THE HELL."
That's about what I said.
My least favorite episode out of the last several. I hope Tyrol stops being the focus of things moving forward, at least for a few episodes.
I thought "Tyler Durden?!" when Head Six picked up Baltar by the armpits...
Also, the Six beating up Tigh was very "I want you to hit me as hard as you can" Fight-Clubby.
It's pretty obvious what a "perfect" complex could mean for a religion-- it means no conscience, because "God" sanctifies everything. How could someone make a mistake with "God" on their side?
It means that the followers can do no wrong in the eyes of God. Ergo, the rule of law (or even respect for life in general) is expendable, making the sect highly dangerous.
That episode sucked balls!
The best thing about this season, the Cylon civil war, was completely absent. And watching those Quorum scenes is like watching C-SPAN in space. Ugh.
@moff: The Season 1 set has the miniseries. So get that, for some reason they originally released it as the miniseries and then the regular episodes, now you can get em all in one package.
There are 5 discs in Season 1, so just start at the beginning. I'd have to check my set at home to tell you which episodes are on which disc.
I hate this show. I'm sorry. If I wanted to watch a soap opera, I'd hang out with my Mom a lot more...
You know, I was all set to start watching BSG this season. Not a lot of science fiction to choose from on the air (ooh, I'm old. When was the last time I watched video over wave transmissions?). But episode one said "No". I don't dig people in distress with no power stories. And I don't mean power to fight or power to change. Luckily, with a few upcoming previews and your concise recap I'll be able to follow the story and get the necessary closure on yet another rehash of my childhood.
@russdanger:
Well it's been a soap opera, on and off, since season one. A cool soap opera with explosions and robots and such but still a soap opera.
So, if you are still watching after four years I really have to question your opinion. You either like this show or are a masochist.
@moff: Right. start with disc 2 of Season 1 on Netflix. No worries. And enjoy the ride!
@demonz:
Seriously if you have not been watching from the stat, follow moff's example and pick up the DVDs. This entire season looks like it is shaping up to pay off plot threads that have been building for over three years. If you have not seen the earlier stuff I can't see it making a lot of sense or being particularly enjoyable.
@sandmanfvr: Yeah, I'm surprised that no one else really seemed to get it. Tyrol killed his own wife and deep down he feels bad about it. So the beating he received did two things:
1. he got to bring that emotional pain to the surface as physical pain
2. he took the punishment he felt he needed to receive for what he did
The man has spoken to NO ONE about the fact that he killed her.....NO ONE! Try and imagine how that must feel for anyone; even if it is some like Tyrol. I think her kissing him at the end was alittle weird but no weirder than anything Starbuck has done...for the entire running of the show!
I'm also surprised that Annalee didn't even mention the fact that Baltar's Six physically picks him up. I mean, everyone saw that and I think that it will cause many more people to join his cause purely because it looked like "a spirit" or "God" picked him up.
While Tyrol's speech with Adama was poignant, it seems COMPLETELY unnecessary considering that we all know that she didn't kill herself. It's been many seasons since him and Sharon was sooo long ago.
Now next episode we have to deal with Starbuck's mutiny which seems more like filler to me than anything else. I'm sorry but the whole, "everyone thinks she's crazy" seems like BS at this point. How many of the people on that ship wanted to go with her and how many resisted? Because I bet you that more than half had no problem going out there with her. And NOW they realize she's crazy? Dumbasses
@sandmanfvr:
That's kind of how my wife and i were reading it too.
BSG: Simply great television.
One of my favorite shows right now.
Season Four gets less interesting with each episode, as the writers increasingly give the viewers almost exactly what they would expect....
this is the second EJO directed episode and it proves that he just does not have the chops for directing.
Not that the script was great.
This episode falls prey to the "lets make something out of nothing." mistakes the series makes now and then.
"lets have the gods be mostly absent except as an explicative and then suddenly show a service we've never shown before and people who are willing to fight about it. "
I couldnt' follow the conversation between cheif and the admiral, it was badly cut and i'll have to watch it again. Tigh seeing his wife didn't seem to have any real point, and the episode ignored the sewage ship and the cylon civil war entirely, which are the only interesting things going on.
worse than black market.
@jp182: I think you mean "Tigh", not "Tyrol".
About Starbuck: I think it was pretty much shown that EVERYONE thinks she's either crazy or a Cylon. Galactica is a military vessel - her crew mates were obviously ordered to go with her, and I can't imagine that any of them were happy about it.
I liked this episode, though the Ellen-as-6-scenes got a little old.
Tyrol thinks his options were limited, what about the gays of the fleet? There must be like one gay bar with the same five people in it every night. I feel sorry for them!
I see a shark and someone readying the ramp...
It's coming, there's no denying it. I love this show, but if they keep it up with the spiritual BS, I'm outta there. Get back to the Cylon civil war. Writers, you can go nuts exploring what it means to be human or Cylon or whatever while at the same time blowing shit up.
Cylons are perfect; everyone is perfect; everyone is a Cylon!
My guess is that all this happening-before tomfoolery is 'cause way back on Earth, we humanlings created some servitor Cylons, which promptly discovered religion, created way more human versions of themselves, then decided to try to eradicate their human masters.
Bloodied but undefeated, we humans got the surviving humanoid-Cylons to bugger off elsewhere (perhaps giving 'em a joke religion derived from Greek myths in the process) - and said Cylons founded their own colonies, and eventually got round to creating new servitor whatsit Cylon thingies. Which, blah blah blah...
The final Cylon? Everyone!
That, or in an invalidating-my-original-idea kind of way, the humans really are humans, and they originally fled Earth from a bunch of murderous ur-Cylons what they'd created. Everything happening again, and all that.
Please note: I've only started watching recently, so I may be talking out of my arse in a myriad different ways... ;-)
am I the only one who's horrified that they're shoehorning BSG to fit the "OC In Space" prequel they're working on?
the final cylon will be one of the first models that is made on "Caprica." Mark my words.
@jp182: Really, because it seems to me that the only one who didn't seem like he would have an issue going with her would be Anders. Pretty much everyone except for Anders and Lee showed that they thought she was nuts. Other than those two, the closest would have to be Helo, and that is only because it is more of him wanting to support a friend, but even then he makes it clear that he has his doubts. And, I don't think the mutiny is because they think she is crazy. It is because of how she has been running the ship.
You know what else gives you clarity?
Giving up on a television show that has started sucking like a black hole, and reading a book.
Great recap: "silky blankets and crystals and the hippie-Buddhist-pagan shrine to Baltar which I think is covered in hot pepper lights and photographs from Rush album covers but probably really isn't."
Hee!
@CargoCult:
Yuppers.
Ok, so I can't take Baltar in his hippy-messiah role. It seems like Calais is still playing him as regular old Baltar, and the whole messiah thing is just a new way to survive and be his usually solipsistic self.
But I think the writers want Baltar to really have had an epiphany. It's coming off lame and uneven, and it's not working for me at all, much unintended laughter at these points.
Two other things from this episode:
1) Was it supposed to look like Baltar was being spurred on by an unseen force (Head Six) when he was getting beaten by the cops? The whole scene looked really odd.
2) Where the hell is the first Sharon/Boomer? I've completely lost track of her.
I thought it was strange that Baltar would yell and scream about Zeus being a serial rapist. I mean, if your culture worships gods who went about screwing whomever they wanted, chances are good that rape isn't even a crime in your society. It would be like a militant vegan bursting into church and denouncing Jesus because he ate fish.
@moff: Yes, the miniseries comes first. Watch it first! That is all.
I'm afraid that you yeasayers aren't understanding.
We DO get it.
We just don't like what we are getting.
And these are the episodes they "rethought" after the strike?
I'm now very afraid.
Why does everyone assume what Baltar is doing is bad?
The good thing about this show, one of the good thing's they're keeping to in light of things they're tossing to the wayside, is the fluid definitions of good and bad.
This should be fun.
@Seth L: The first Sharon/Boomer is the one who swapped to Cavil's side on the Basestar.
@aspiringexpatriate: She's also the one who tried to kill Hera back in season 3.
"We're all perfect" is "bad" because it's anti-original sin, and more like Ayn Rand than Christianity. Yete another brand of crap dogma with easy-to-recite slogans.
Friday's episode was also bad. Tyrol and Tigh are working hard, but even they can't improve the sloppy writing.
@Plague: They rethought the second half of the season, not the first-- those were in the can before the strike.
Come on, this episode was awesom, Tigh changed diapers of Tyrols baby!
Oh and that 5-second-Anders-walking-up-to-Starbuck at the end of the episode was completely useless
Almost forgot, Tigh was sort of smiling at Cally's funeral like he wanted her to be dead