Spoilers ahead.
I love that Adama’s alliance with the cylons set off a mutiny which needed to be put down. I love that the cost of an alliance with cylons is that two named characters — including one that the fans and many of the main characters had affection for — were executed. This is exactly the sort of “choices have consequences” storyline that really should be included in space opera shows, but almost never is.
So I’m glad they did this story.
Unfortunately, the episode itself was tepid and unoriginal. What could have been a meaningful storyline, with some moral complexity, was instead done as a trivial action movie.
The only element that was at all unexpected was that the council got killed off, which was only unexpected because Tom hasn’t been shown to be that much of a generic Evil Villain in his past episodes.
I found Tom’s actions generally bewildering. It made sense for him to lie about Tigh being dead to Adama. But why didn’t he tell Gaeta the truth, once they were out of Adama’s earshot? If a bunch of incredibly important and dangerous prisoners escape, the rational thing to do is to tell the head of the military, so that a search and capture/kill effort can be deployed.
Also: The lawyer is able to quickly kill the big, armed guard because the plot kind of requires it. Boring.
Also: The Chief sabotages the FTL at the last possible moment — during the countdown, even. Gee, I’ve never seen that before. Boring.
So, anyhow, that’s my thoughts. Yours?
Yeah, I pretty much agree down the line on this.
I think Zarek’s problem is that he hasn’t been well-characterized lately — but I remember earlier in the show when he was first introduced, and it was made clear that he was some kind of mob boss back in the Colonies (and ran the black market in the fleet, as I recall). I think they were trying to get across that in any given situation he’s going to react like a mob boss, and such people don’t permit challenges to their authority (which is what the Quorum had just done). I wish they’d allowed him to grow beyond this; it would’ve made him a more interesting character. But I guess they can’t develop everybody. Frankly, I kept expecting him to try and shoot Gaeta, because mob bosses don’t take too well to sharing leadership either, but at least the writers weren’t that predictable.
I thought Tom’s actions made perfect sense. He’s always been deceptive, and always hidden his real motivations. Gaeta was starting to show a dangerous degree of autonomy. If things hadn’t turned when they did, he would have been the next body on the floor.
Also, Badger wouldn’t have been able to kill that guard if he hadn’t been distracted. I thought it played pretty well, given how messy it was.
They definitely made Zarek into a Designated Villain in that episode when he ordered the Quorum killed. Gaeta seemed like far more of an idealist; Zarek talked about “democracy” and “the will of the people” a lot, but in this episode the writers wanted to show that he didn’t really believe in it. Gaeta, on the other hand, did; he wanted to give Adama a fair trial even though Zarek wanted to Just Shoot Him. I was half-expecting Gaeta to turn on Zarek after that scene.
Ending the mutiny by simply having the troops loyal to Adama overcome the mutineers by force is something of a disappointment, since most of the show’s drama is character driven, and being better at shooting people doesn’t make you right.
I am ambivalent. I see that the mutiny probably needed to be resolved in the space of two episodes, so I understand why it went the way it did, but at the same time, I had liked the sense that Tom Zarek wasn’t that bad a guy. I may be misremembering, since I’ve only watched the series once through, but for a while I thought he came off well as wanting the best for humanity, but disagreeing with Roslin and Adama about what that was. (Though he was also clearly motivated by the need to see himself as a Great Man.)
So, I would have liked to see this whole arc go down with him as an analogue to Roslin, who’s willing to fight to the death to do what he thinks will save humanity (and make him a Hero of our Time), especially since the issues that brought about the mutiny are actually legitimate concerns. I understand wanting to have Gaeta betrayed by his brutality, but I think they both could have died thinking they tried to do the right thing. More complexity and stuff.
My perspective was probably unduly influenced by the fact that we’ve just started a rewatch of the entire series — and saw “Bastille Day” only a few days ago. It really highlit to what extent they’ve flattened out the character of Tom Zarek over the years. Over time, they’ve gradually transformed him from a complex and ambiguous character, one about whom intelligent people of good will could reasonably have differences of opinion, to a flat-out villain, and one who is obvious as such to anyone neither blinded by hate nor fantastically foolish and gullible.
I find this extremely disappointing. One of the things I’ve always liked about this show is its willingness to present differences of opinion among the characters in shades of grey. This plotline, however, was presented as a tediously black-and-white action movie, and the flattening out of Zarek’s character was merely one tiny symptom of that overall trend in the writing. It makes me sad.
I’m going to disagree on a few points.
First off, this two-episode arc is about the tension between Utopianism and realism. Gaeta is the fulcrum on which the show runs; he’s the Utopian. The realists are Zarek on one side, who wants to consolidate power in himself, and Adama/Roslin on the other, who want to muddle through with the status quo.
1. Zarek killing the Quorum was definitely his Rape the Dog moment (unless you prefer to view that as killing Laird), but Zarek is a realist. He’s fighting a revolution, and the Quorum is only going to get in his way. Gaeta thinks he’s fighting for a Utopian world, one where the Cylons are sent on their merry way; Zarek knows better. And so while it’s a horrifying act, it isn’t out of character or even wrong, from Zarek’s point of view.
Incidentally, while we blanch at Zarek’s actions, remember: they aren’t wrong, from his point of view. He believes that Adama/Roslin must be overcome and ousted. He’s simply doing what must be done to achieve that. We see it as wrong and barbaric, but every revolution has run along the same lines.
2. Yes, Tyrol disabling the FTL just in time is a trope. But Tropes Are Not Bad. At least he disables it with a few seconds to go, rather than at the last possible second, IIRC.
3. As Elizabeth Anne notes, Romo got to the guard because the guard was distracted by Kara Thrace and a dying (?) Anders. Don’t forget, Romo’s Badass Normal, he’s got skills. (Can you tell I’ve spent some time on TVTropes of late?)
4. One more TV Trope: this week had Laura Roslin’s Crowning Moment of Awesome, when, after being told that Adama was dead, she announced in no uncertain terms that she would follow Zarek to the ends of the universe just to kill him.
5. I liked Baltar finally growing up, and realizing that he has more responsibility than just frakking willing sixes.
6. Finally, and this is something that’s grown on me in the past few hours: Gaeta’s soliloquy at the end, to Baltar. I thought it was masterfully done. Symbolically, Gaeta was saying what he was — an idealist, a Utopian. A man who imagined brilliant, amazing cities as a child, a man who believed that he was standing up for what was right. Unfortunately, like all Utopians, Gaeta found himself nowhere.
That’s the ultimate moral of this arc — there is no Utopia, only the real world. We can make the best of the world we have, but we can’t perfect it. Tom Zarek understood that, and died because of it. Felix Gaeta maybe didn’t ever, but he died all the same.
Now, on to Ellen.
Jeff Fecke, ssh! Our host is just cranky because he was rooting for Zarek ‘n’ Gaeta. That’s why people point out tropes as though they were bad.
Well, at least we were spared from “Our Hero Helo is Always Right, part whatever.”
Gaeta’s scene at the end was excellent and very satisfying. Everything else in the episode was paint by numbers.
Our host is just cranky because he was rooting for Zarek ‘n’ Gaeta.
Well, of course he was! When a once-nuanced drama crosses over the line into stark melodrama, then it is ones aesthetic duty to become a resistant reader.
If nothing else, fulfilling this readerly obligation helps to keep ones critical muscles in shape in case of exposure to Fox News, “women’s” magazines, advertising, and various other diverse forms of propaganda.
I’m not annoyed that the rebellion failed, I’m just annoyed that the writers refuse to write a better rebellion (also I really wanted the rebellion to take someone out, preferably Adama, but I knew that was a feeble hope).
But that was a pretty uninteresting episode. As well as being politically very regressive (men were men, women were appendages and Gaetna as the gay, disabled person of colour was evil and dead). I hate Roslyn and I”m still annoyed with what they’ve done with her character, now she’s nothing more than Adama’s appendage.
But the moment that pissed me off most was when The Chief and the guy who had his gun on the chief bonded over how much Callie sucked. Human men and Cylon men finding common ground in their misogyny – lovely.