Resurrection Ship, Part 2 (212)

[somedude]

I got the idea that he was trying to reach out to Gina, using the information to form a connection with her. I'm unsure if his intentions were benelvolent though.

They mentioned in the podcast that this was something that Six used to like to do, to feel the excitement of the crowd. She would invite Baltar to join her. And now, Baltar is using that same story on Gina, in effect erasing Six from his current mind.

[Blue Banrigh]

They mentioned in the podcast that this was something that Six used to like to do, to feel the excitement of the crowd. She would invite Baltar to join her. And now, Baltar is using that same story on Gina, in effect erasing Six from his current mind.

I think she'll still hang around and annoy him, but she'll probably disappear when he's around Gina.

[Skydiver]

i attribute starbuck's words to a little bit of empathy with cain

think of it...starbuck has always been bucking heads with folks. adama does have a soft spot for her, but she's always the maverick. always the outsider, always welcome only because she makes herself welcome

with cain she didn't have that. she didn't have someone giving her grief for being non-reg, she had someone acknowledge her and give her responsibilities. and she had someone empathize with her in rescuing the capricans (although the blush would come off that rose as soon as cain said no. the only reason cain said yes was to play her...and kara woulda found that out eventually)

cain played her and itll be interesing if kara ever realizes it

[dec55]

Loved Boomer in this eppy.....gorgeous...

[Blue Banrigh]

Was it ever made clear in these eps if the Cylons aboard the Resurrection ship were conscious? Or if they were empty bodies waiting for a mind to download?

[Aussie_86]

I actually agree with Kara's little speech about Cain at the end.

Cain did what needed to be done, and she got it done, without flinching.

Ya know how much balls it takes to do that? Although some of her methods (stripping civillian ships) were a bit wrong, think about it this way...


Your whole race has been destroyed... you're one ship... one crew, in the middle of no where with an enemy all around you. No one to keep you in check. All you would be doing from day to day is surviving, and that's it. Eventually, your mind would just get this 'survival' attitude - do whatever is necessary to survive, at all costs, as long as they're not to me.

That's what i think anyway.


IF Cain and Adama had been at equal roles (ie, Admiral.. or, Cain got demoted to Commander and Adama remained at Commander), she would have been a very good asset to the fleet - people could keep her in line, and she would have the balls to do what needed to be done! Although Roslin does have a **** load of balls, as well as Adama, Cain's got more, and Starbuck sees this.

About the assassanation - if Cain did know that Kara had been sent to kill her, i believe that Cain knew that Kara wasn't likely to follow through with it... however, if word came in over the wireless that Adama's Command had been taken out, there would be a bullet through Cain's head immediately. (if Cain knew about her assassanation attempt) - that would lead Cain to call off her assassanation of Adama's Command.



Anyway... great great episode... am hoping that when they release the DVD's they'll have more shots of the space battle as that rocked!

[Aussie_86]

-Can someone explain the significance of the scene where Baltar told Six's story to Gina? I got the feeling that somehow he was consciously deciding to remove Six from his brain and replace her with Gina. Yes? No? Maybe?

From what i gathered, it showed that deep down, all cylon number 6 models are the same... ie, Six in baltar's head liked to go to the stadium and the rest of the stuff that happens in the story... Baltar is making the assumption that the abused woman in front of him, would like to go to a stadium and feel the crowd, with someone special like baltar!

This may be why Cylons want to reproduce with humans - create emotional diversity within the population (and therefore love which they all seem to be wanting)

[scifi maniac]

Storywise I loved Cain. She brought a lot of interesting things to the series and loved the interaction she had with Adama and Starbuck.

Characterwise I hated Cain. She was a psycho b!tch who ran her ship on fear.

She stripped the civilian fleat of everything! even their FTL drives. She left them there to die and not to forget she put two families up against the wall and executed them. She would have put them all against the wall if the people they could use didn't agree to go to the Pegasus. She let the crew gangrape a prisoner. One could argue that they needed information. Agreed. But there is a difference in using violence to extract information (which they didn't get from Gina anyway so it didn't help) and repeatedly abusing, torturing and gangraping a prissoner for the sheer fun of it/ of having an out led. Because that is what she did, not just because of the info.

Besides if you let your crew gangrape a cylon under the motto she's just a machine, go ahead, what stops other crewmembers of accusing each other when one rejects the other/ or p!sses the other one off? That (now dead)guy looked like a sexual frustrated man and I wouldn't put it past any of them to accuse innocents just to have your way with them. Cain was a soldier. She's supposed to think about more than just her crew. It's her duty to protect the civilians. Oh and what about her XO? She shot him point blank in the head when he refused to give the suicide order. She could have put him in jail.

Cain was the worst thing for the fleet and I thought Starbucks little story about Cain was totally inapropriate. I'm glad she's dead.

Ding dong! the witch is dead. which old witch? the wicked witch!
Ding dong! the wicked witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the wicked witch is dead. she's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The wicked witch is dead!

[scifi maniac]

I actually agree with Kara's little speech about Cain at the end.

Cain did what needed to be done, and she got it done, without flinching.

Ya know how much balls it takes to do that? Although some of her methods (stripping civillian ships) were a bit wrong, think about it this way...


Your whole race has been destroyed... you're one ship... one crew, in the middle of no where with an enemy all around you. No one to keep you in check. All you would be doing from day to day is surviving, and that's it. Eventually, your mind would just get this 'survival' attitude - do whatever is necessary to survive, at all costs, as long as they're not to me.

That's what i think anyway.

Yes you're right, she was only one ship because Cain destroyed the other dozen of civi ships that were with her.

[keshou]

i attribute starbuck's words to a little bit of empathy with cain

think of it...starbuck has always been bucking heads with folks. adama does have a soft spot for her, but she's always the maverick. always the outsider, always welcome only because she makes herself welcome

with cain she didn't have that. she didn't have someone giving her grief for being non-reg, she had someone acknowledge her and give her responsibilities. and she had someone empathize with her in rescuing the capricans (although the blush would come off that rose as soon as cain said no. the only reason cain said yes was to play her...and kara woulda found that out eventually)

cain played her and itll be interesing if kara ever realizes it

I think you're on target. Cain gave her a fresh start and major responsibility without all the baggage she has on Galactica, without Tigh in her face. In fact Cain even sympathized about having to work for Tigh - something Adama would never do. Cain even - as you say - played on her desire to go back to Caprica and rescue the survivors. Kara's tough but she's also pretty needy in some ways and Cain seemed to know how to push her buttons. Of course I think Cain was somewhat genuine in respecting and liking Kara. Perhaps she was even similar to Kara in her younger years.

I'm just wondering what, if anything, Kara will take away from this experience. Wonder if she'll retain her new postion under Admiral Adama?

[Liebestraume]

Was it ever made clear in these eps if the Cylons aboard the Resurrection ship were conscious? Or if they were empty bodies waiting for a mind to download?

I think all Baltar related to Cain was that "we are too far way from the Cylon home world for the normal downloading process to work" and that the ship "... contains the entire apparatus necessary for Cylon resurrection." We were left to assume that the bodies awaiting download were empty. But, you are right, the issue of pre-existing consciousness was never explicitly addressed.

i attribute starbuck's words to a little bit of empathy with cain.
...
cain played her and itll be interesing if kara ever realizes it

I think Kara will realize she was manipulated as soon as she learns Cain's ruthlessness where civilians were concerned.

That being said, the empathy may not completely go away. Cain was very single-minded in fighting the Cylons. Her crew had had some success in space battles before meeting us with Galactica, and she accomplished what she set out to do, which was to take out the Resurrection Ship. I think Cain made going back to Caprica believable to Kara because she genuinely meant it -- just not for the reason that Kara thought.

And there is the "do not flinch" pep-talk. In essense, that was Cain's rationalization of all the questionable acts under her command. The ethics thereof notwithstanding, what we learned there was that those were painful decisions for her as well. I think Kara empathizes with Cain because she caught a glimpse of the woman that other people were not privy to.

[entil2001]

I’m often asked: what kind of episode would be able to achieve a rating of 10/10? So many strong episodes top out at 8 or 9, and yes, that’s intentional. It leaves the very top rating for the episodes that transcend what most productions manage. Not through perfection, necessarily, but through the power of the story and its telling, through taking chances or raising the bar. Episodes like “Severed Dreams” for “Babylon 5” or “Once More, With Feeling” for “Buffy”,

This episode now joins the elite.

Nearly every scene brings with it an emotional resonance that is lacking from most televised storytelling. From the poetic decision by Apollo to let the black overtake him, to Starbuck’s anguish at having to eliminate a flawed but dedicated leader, to Baltar’s latest step towards apparent betrayal, to Adama’s realization of what he must do in the name of humanity…it all strikes a chord. And more importantly, it brought several plot threads to fruition while sparking off several others.

Ron Moore made a point in his podcast to remind the audience that the series tries not to give easy answers to the questions posed by the story. Flawed humans are allowed to remain flawed and take a long journey towards some new way of thinking, which may in fact be equally flawed. Yet if there is a theme or a message, it’s what Adama says after his pivotal discussion with Sharon, harkening back to the mini-series: it’s not enough just to survive. Humanity must demonstrate why it is worthy of survival.

This was the fundamental difference between Adama and Cain. Adama has been focused, from the very beginning, on keeping humanity safe but doing so while preserving some sense of human morality and decency. It was about preservation of humanity on philosophical terms, and it took him some time to understand that Roslin was equally committed to the same goal, simply on a more spiritual level. It’s not great for military discipline, but in a very real sense, the familiar structures of command and government are already little more than an artifice.

Cain, on the other hand, had allowed her hatred of the Cylons to overcome some aspects of her humanity, leading to a brand of survival that dismissed the finer aspects of human morality. It was survival of humanity in literal terms. Yet that focus and drive was something vital, especially now that Roslin is dying and Adama has broader responsibilities. Never mind that there’s an entire crew on “Pegasus” with Cain’s harsher philosophy. Cain was coming around, after all, and she was not completely lost. Starbuck will likely remind Adama in future episodes how important that focus was.

Interestingly enough, Sharon’s conversation with Adama reveals why Baltar’s decision might be more in service of humanity than in betrayal of it. Baltar shows Gina that there is something within humanity that deserves to survive. Six may not be willing to see it that way, based on their strange relationship, but Baltar’s actions could be interpreted as mitigating the harsher human responses. I wouldn’t be shocked to discover that Baltar, however accidentally, turns out to be as instrumental in humanity’s survival as Adama or Roslin.

I connect Lee’s decision to die in space with the realization that Roslin was the one who suggested that Cain be assassinated. He could have believed that from his father, given Adama’s decision to jail the President, but he never would have expected that from Roslin. I think he chose death over survival out of despair for humanity itself. I may be wrong about the why, but Lee is going to take a long time to find something worth living for. Will Starbuck or Dee give him that something?

I believe that this episode had the most elaborate and extensive special effects sequences since the mini-series, and those scenes are simply stunning. What’s even better is the fact that those amazing effects and the battle itself are almost tangential to the meat of the story, but they represent a massive shift in the status quo for the fleet. The Cylons are now rocked back on their heels and the fleet has two Battlestars. I wouldn’t be shocked if the bulk of the season, at least until the season finale, took advantage of the lack of Cylon presence by returning focus on the issues within the fleet itself.

After all, this episode, likely in concert with the next episode, brings the “complication” phase of the season arc to an effective end. It’s all about setting up the resolution. After hitting such a high point, it’s going to take time to work through the consequences and set the stage for the next stunning achievement. Some might question whether the series can accomplish something like this again, but who saw this coming, even after the excellent “Pegasus”?

There’s one more thing that must be noted, beyond the tight and nuanced writing, the near-perfect performances, and the inspired direction. What takes all of that to the next level is the incredible score. The score for this episode was more powerful than I can express in this review. I can’t wait for the second season soundtrack, just for this episode’s score alone. I could rewatch this episode several times over and still find new things to discuss, and for that reason, this episode deserves the highest praise.

[Skydiver]

you have a good point about baltar. the cylons have thier battle against the humans, likely based on attitudes like cain's. that machines are not human therefore not equal. something lesser. an IT.

but baltar is seeing the woman behind the machine with gina. adama is now seeing sharon as a woman and victim, not just a machine

a war is easier to fight when the enemy is clearly defined but harder when there are people that don't fit the defintion of 'enemy'

we now, apparantly, have two cylons in the fleet that are sympathetic to the humans. what's to say there's not more?

[Frakster]

So is Six in Baltar's head gone for good?

[Speakfire]

I think that Baltar is using what 6 told him to manipulate Gina for himself. Which is no surprise, when does Gaius do anything that doesn't benefit himself in some way? I think that he was strongly effected by the sight and interaction with this diametric opposite of 6, a broken woman with very few of the personality strengths of the one in his mind, because they've all been stripped away by her being gangraped and abused by the Pegasus crew and captain. And to engender trust between them, he brought up word for word what 6 had told him. And it worked.

I just watched it again a little while ago and the scene with Dee outside while Starbuck and Lee are talking.. you know, that little bit more than anything else made me wonder if she was a Cylon. Not because she was out there in the first place, but when he said he didn't want to come back alive and she looked so disturbed, it made me think of what Gina had just said a little earlier, that suicide was a sin. I'm probably reading way too much into it, as I am sure if I heard someone I respected (and was interested in romantically) say they wanted to die, I imagine I'd be upset too. But that just popped into my head. Then again, Ronald Moore has implied on more than one occasion that they've been building up to some thing going on between Dee and Lee, so of course its likely just worry.

Forgot to say, watching it for the 2nd time.. they really did a great job with the mood music in this one.