Battlestar Galactica Season 4, Episodes 15, 16, 17

Okay so because I have been really not keeping on task with this blog I have to play catchup with this show. But since I am way too confused about the show I will just clump them all together:

"No Exit"

Grade: B

I realized during this episode that I have no idea what the fuck is going on with it. All of the mythological stuff makes no sense to me and the way things were explained in this episode was in a way that had a "see we explained everything"vibe to it. I know this is partly my fault but I'm just really confused. And I realized that I watch this show for the characters and for their interactions, relationships and hopeful survival as opposed to Lost where I become obsessed with the mythology and with the characters equally which would explain why in the end I think Lost is the better show but I still think at its best Battlestar matches Lost and at times has surpassed it.

I loved the way they handled Ellen's character here. She is the same Ellen except with memories. I loved all the stuff with learning about Brother Cavil and what he did to the Final 5. ALl of the exposition with Anders though for me could have been helped with visuals. While Anders was talking I could have had silent visuals that showed what he was talking about. Still we learned a lot and even though I did not get it all it was really important.

"Deadlock"
Grade: B

So this episode let us see the Final Five together again which was very cool. I honestly do not really have a ton to say about this episode. I am glad Gaius had something to do even though I question where they are going with all of this because I still feel like they dropped the ball on Gaius completely as a character. He used to have so so so much more screen time. But he sitll brought what little humor the show has going for it because Gaius is just funny. I love that he likes a kid more when they share the same name. I liked the return of Head Six. I liked that we got inside of his head a bit. Tigh makes me cry and since I love Tigh and Adama so much it was really great to have that realization between Ellen and Caprica Six that in fact Tigh loves Adama and everything he stands for and all of the military stuff more than either of them. He loves Bill the most!!!!!! So Tigh and Six lost the baby. DEPRESSING.

"Someone to Watch Over Me"

Grade: A-

This was a fucked up episode and a complete stand out. SO much of this episode was extremely high brow for television with some really stunning sequences that basically had to do with the use of piano based music for the episode gave everything a very poetic feel. We start out with the greatest opening to an episode of Battlestar since Season 1's "Kobol's Last Gleaming Part 1". This is an absolutely stunning piece of editing that perfectly showcased the monotony of Starbuck's life. This episode has two plots going on. One with Starbuck and one with Boomer and Tyrol.

Basically Starbuck ends up talking for the entire episode to her father although she does not know it at the time and at the end we find out it was all in her head and we are led to believe that Starbuck's father is Daniel the 7th and that Starbuck is the first Cylon hybrid not Hera although this information has not been actually shown on the show yet its the popular theory so much so that it is being taken as fact by everyone. While some were upset with wasting time when we have so little time left, I thought it was really important for Starbuck's character to have her unknowingly interact with her father and it really set the scene for next week which will apparently explain everything so that the information flying at us will have been coming along for a while now as opposed to it coming out of nowhere and seeming forced. I loved the scenes between her and her dad. I thought that it was nice to see her open up to someone and to meaningfully interact with someone which she had seemed basically incapable of doing.

The use of piano music in this episode was incredible and seriously beautiful. The lead up and reveal that the song her father taught her as a kid was "All Along the Watchtower" was freaking awesome.

Okay so the Boomer and Tyrol story added a while different level of despair and disturbance to the evening. First of all I love that they went back to the Tyrol/Boomer storyline picking it up after all of this time just because it really does go all the way back even to the miniseries. Second of all Tyrol is a moron. I understand why he connected to Boomer again; he really has nothing else going for him. The protection of what there live would have been seen was really touching and seriously depressing to me. For a second there I actually trusted Boomer. Why? I am a moron. Why the fuck did Helo not know who he was having sex with? That's fucked up. Honestly he should have known it was not her just because he must have another way of telling Athena apart from the other 8's. Honestly Helo way to be an idiot. And honestly Boomer way to be a sadistic bitch by fucking him knowing Athena can see. Then way to fucking steal a child and put her an a freaking cart. Athena's primal scream was awesome. Tyrol's reaction to all of this was great too. Where will he go from here? Will people find out about this? Great end to the episode.

Great episode with a really different feel to it, both beautiful and poetic but depressing and really disturbing at times. Only 4 hours left with 3 episodes to go. Here we go...