|
Home | All Shows | Blog | Movie Reviews | Book Reviews | Site Updates | Articles | FAQ | About Us | |||
 |
||||
This review is also on our blog. |
 |
4.14 Blood on the Scales Gaeta: "It stopped." Incredibly cool conclusion, following last week's incredibly cool part one. This might have been their best two-parter ever, and that's saying a lot. You could see the end coming as one Colonial after another just couldn't follow Gaeta's orders any more. Hot Dog, who refused to fire on Roslin's raptor. Kelly, who overheard the massacre of the Quorum, started crying in the memorial hallway, and had to change sides. Romo Lampkin, the poster child for cynical, was unable to walk away from Starbuck and Anders. Even the Cylons came through. (Except for Tory. It's like being a Cylon gives her an excuse to be a bitch.) It was all good. Outstanding, even. But with so much Battlestar goodness, what I enjoyed most was Adama and Roslin refusing to even consider surrender. I got a huge charge out of Adama telling Gaeta to shove it up his ass. It was such complete and total courageous defiance in the face of certain death. Did Gaeta really believe Adama would ever support him? For any reason? I don't think he'd do it even if Gaeta had a gun to Lee's head. And Roslin had her finest moment. She believed Adama was dead. She believed that Galactica was lost. And she's a dying woman, let's not forget. "No. Not now. Not ever. Do you hear me? I will use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eyeteeth, to end you. I swear it! I'm coming for all of you!" Her best lines ever. It reminded me of Delenn's finest moment in Babylon 5's "Severed Dreams". It actually made me feel sick to see Gaeta in Adama's office. Even sicker to hear him give the order to execute Adama; I had hoped he wouldn't be able to do it, but he did. Zarek showed his true colors, too, with that horrendous slaughter of the entire Quorum. He wanted to just kill Adama outright. If he had, he and Gaeta might have won, and Zarek would have been the dictator he always longed to be. What a horrible thought. Reciprocal firing squad scenes. Adama had to do it, and I knew he wouldn't hesitate. (That little smile Zarek and Gaeta gave each other in their final moments was just creepy. Maybe they were relieved that it was finally over.) But Adama didn't put Narcho and all the other soldiers like him under the gun. Interment, maybe? Is the Astral Queen still in the fleet? One big unanswered question. Did Anders make it? Lee just lost his wife. Is Starbuck about to lose her husband? Bits and pieces: -- This week's survivor number: 39,603. Forty dead. The number will be lower next week. -- In an obvious tribute to Star Trek, Tyrol spent most of the episode in a Jefferies tube. And just like Scotty, Tyrol saved the day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferies_tube -- Loved Lee and Starbuck as stealth guerrillas rescuing most of the cast in the brig. Especially Lee's bluff grenade. -- Most of the mutineers probably don't deserve to die; for them, the Cylons will always be the enemy. But what about Gage, who kept threatening to rape Athena? Couldn't they shove him out of an airlock? Maybe Helo will recover from his injuries and go kick the crap out of him. That would be good. -- This week's Most Obvious Symbolism was Gaeta's leg. It kept hurting him right up until a moment before he was executed. The pain (which I assume was the phantom pain referred to previously) symbolized all of his emotional despair as well as the wrongness of what he did. -- Interestingly, Gaius also mentioned that he should have cut off his own legs for running away from his "fan club." -- Second Most Obvious Symbolism was Lampkin using his pen to kill the soldier. :) -- Honorable mention for Richard Hatch. He was the star of the original Battlestar Galactica, and the old show was extremely important to him; when the new series began, he didn't keep his negative feelings about it a secret. But he gave Tom Zarek his all, and made him a memorable and complex villain. And he certainly went out with a bang. -- Not one, but two death fake-outs. Zarek deliberately lied about Tigh's death to upset Adama. (Although Adama didn't give him the satisfaction.) And Gaeta's announcement about Adama's death was a bit premature. -- It was kind of Gaius to spend that final hour with Gaeta, who almost certainly would have had a quiet, productive, normal life if the Colonies hadn't been attacked. Loved Gaeta's mention of restaurants shaped like food. A little L.A. in-joke. Quotes: Adama: "I care too much for this ship to let it be overrun by rats." Lampkin: "I don't suppose anyone's going to feed my dog." Lee: "Never pulled the pin." Starbuck: "Not funny." Lee: "Yeah. Would have been if you'd thought of it." Four out of four stars, Billie View all comments or post a comment. |
 |
Season 4 Video on Demand |
Home | All Shows | Blog | Movie Reviews | Book Reviews | Site Updates | Articles | FAQ | About Us