"It may feel like hell, but sometimes lost is where you need to be. Just because you don't know your direction doesn't mean you don't have one."
SO SAY WE ALL: Kara reconnects with the piano. Boomer makes her escape.
REVIEW: Boomer's part in the story no doubt looks like the A-plot, and that makes Starbuck's screwing around at the piano fly under the radar. It's actually the most important part, as we head into these final days. It's hard to tell if "Slick" is a day dream or actually present in the same way Head Six is. And if he is there, is it just an assumed shape, or the ghost of Kara's father? Whatever the case may be, he encourages her to play some notes, and not only resolve her ambivalent feelings for her father (we were led to believe there was abuse, but it seems abandonment was the more specific issue), and the rediscovery of an old song he used to play, the notes of which Hera doodles and gives to Kara before her kidnapping, which happens to be All Along the Watchtower (the Final Five get the chills), is going to become the key to humanity finding a home. So there's some beautiful music in this episode, much of it sad, scoring the slow death of Galactica and Kara's deterioration as the days blur into one another, but who knew, at this point, first-watch, that it would be integral to the plot. It needs to be memorable, and so it is. Bear McCreary is one of the biggest heroes of the show.
It's pretty clear Galactica will not get a reprieve. Power outages, a thin crew complement, the ship periodically shakes - just like Roslin's hands, Adama's two ladies seem inextricably linked - despite gunking the ship's frame with Cylon goo, she has at best only a few jumps in her. Roslin recommends a contingency plan be put into place, but it's gonna take Adama a while to consider it. A Cylon representative has been elected to the Quorum, a Six called Sonya, and she asks for Boomer's extradition so they can try her as a traitor. Annnnd that puts things into motion that will shock and surprise. Everyone warns Tyrol that Boomer is a master manipulator, but he loves her still, and she wraps him even more around her finger by projecting the house they once talked a out building, and populating it with a child. And I think she manipulates us as well.
But even breaking Ellen out and bringing her to Galactica was part of the plan. The Chief is so afraid she'll be executed by the Cylons that he kills for her, breaks her out of her cell... What happens next is harrowing. She beats Sharon up, has sex with Helo in front of her in the guise of his wife, takes Hera out of school, puts her in a crate and flies off. For Sharon/Athena, this is a scream at the sky moment, and the crew at least figures it out before Boomer escapes. It just doesn't matter, she still succeeds, and jumps so close to the hull that it buckles the Battlestar's already compromised frame. They ALL got played, us too, but none more so than Tyrol who, in a symbolic ending, returns to the "house" and finds his imaginary child gone. THAT GIRL IS EVIL. My main take-away is that I've come to accept Boomer and Sharon as two completely different people to the point where I never think about the fact they're both played by Grace Park.
CAPRICANADA: Roark Critchlow who plays "Slick" Thrace is a Canadian actor out of Calgary whose other genre credits include V and Arrow. Boomer and Tyrol's house is a private residence in North Vancouver (apparently not far from Adama's home).
ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AND IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN: "All Along the Watchtower" was composed by Anders, then independently by Kara's father, by Hera, and in our time frame, by Bob Dylan. The song identified by Kara as "Nomion's 3rd Sonata" is actually the original series' "Exploration Theme" (the intro to Saga of a Star World). The name of the Tauron toothpaste (the last in the universe) is called Felgercarb, the word for shit (or bullshit given the Tauron connection) on the original series.
HUMAN DEATH TOLL: Head count holds steady at 39,556. It's possible people were killed in the hull breach, but none confirmed.
VERSIONS: Deleted scenes include the start of the piano dream, with Starbuck reacting to an alarm before following the music to the launch deck; more of the conversation between Tyrol and other Five about Boomer; Roslin discussing a contingency plan for Galactica and her shaking hands; Athena talking with Hot Dog about his kid before Boomer attacks her; a post-coital scene between Helo and Boomer; and Adama having a dream about Laura on her death bed as Thrace's music plays.
REWATCHABILITY: High - I doubt we'll go lower from here to the end of the series proper. This is all important stuff, well done by all departments.
REVIEW: Boomer's part in the story no doubt looks like the A-plot, and that makes Starbuck's screwing around at the piano fly under the radar. It's actually the most important part, as we head into these final days. It's hard to tell if "Slick" is a day dream or actually present in the same way Head Six is. And if he is there, is it just an assumed shape, or the ghost of Kara's father? Whatever the case may be, he encourages her to play some notes, and not only resolve her ambivalent feelings for her father (we were led to believe there was abuse, but it seems abandonment was the more specific issue), and the rediscovery of an old song he used to play, the notes of which Hera doodles and gives to Kara before her kidnapping, which happens to be All Along the Watchtower (the Final Five get the chills), is going to become the key to humanity finding a home. So there's some beautiful music in this episode, much of it sad, scoring the slow death of Galactica and Kara's deterioration as the days blur into one another, but who knew, at this point, first-watch, that it would be integral to the plot. It needs to be memorable, and so it is. Bear McCreary is one of the biggest heroes of the show.
It's pretty clear Galactica will not get a reprieve. Power outages, a thin crew complement, the ship periodically shakes - just like Roslin's hands, Adama's two ladies seem inextricably linked - despite gunking the ship's frame with Cylon goo, she has at best only a few jumps in her. Roslin recommends a contingency plan be put into place, but it's gonna take Adama a while to consider it. A Cylon representative has been elected to the Quorum, a Six called Sonya, and she asks for Boomer's extradition so they can try her as a traitor. Annnnd that puts things into motion that will shock and surprise. Everyone warns Tyrol that Boomer is a master manipulator, but he loves her still, and she wraps him even more around her finger by projecting the house they once talked a out building, and populating it with a child. And I think she manipulates us as well.
But even breaking Ellen out and bringing her to Galactica was part of the plan. The Chief is so afraid she'll be executed by the Cylons that he kills for her, breaks her out of her cell... What happens next is harrowing. She beats Sharon up, has sex with Helo in front of her in the guise of his wife, takes Hera out of school, puts her in a crate and flies off. For Sharon/Athena, this is a scream at the sky moment, and the crew at least figures it out before Boomer escapes. It just doesn't matter, she still succeeds, and jumps so close to the hull that it buckles the Battlestar's already compromised frame. They ALL got played, us too, but none more so than Tyrol who, in a symbolic ending, returns to the "house" and finds his imaginary child gone. THAT GIRL IS EVIL. My main take-away is that I've come to accept Boomer and Sharon as two completely different people to the point where I never think about the fact they're both played by Grace Park.
CAPRICANADA: Roark Critchlow who plays "Slick" Thrace is a Canadian actor out of Calgary whose other genre credits include V and Arrow. Boomer and Tyrol's house is a private residence in North Vancouver (apparently not far from Adama's home).
ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AND IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN: "All Along the Watchtower" was composed by Anders, then independently by Kara's father, by Hera, and in our time frame, by Bob Dylan. The song identified by Kara as "Nomion's 3rd Sonata" is actually the original series' "Exploration Theme" (the intro to Saga of a Star World). The name of the Tauron toothpaste (the last in the universe) is called Felgercarb, the word for shit (or bullshit given the Tauron connection) on the original series.
HUMAN DEATH TOLL: Head count holds steady at 39,556. It's possible people were killed in the hull breach, but none confirmed.
VERSIONS: Deleted scenes include the start of the piano dream, with Starbuck reacting to an alarm before following the music to the launch deck; more of the conversation between Tyrol and other Five about Boomer; Roslin discussing a contingency plan for Galactica and her shaking hands; Athena talking with Hot Dog about his kid before Boomer attacks her; a post-coital scene between Helo and Boomer; and Adama having a dream about Laura on her death bed as Thrace's music plays.
REWATCHABILITY: High - I doubt we'll go lower from here to the end of the series proper. This is all important stuff, well done by all departments.
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