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4.15 No Exit Ellen: "What are you doing?" Boomer: "Forgiving you." There was so much information in this episode that I kept saying to the screen, "Slow down! What was that again?" (And in fact, this is the revised version of my original review because I missed so much the first two times I watched this episode. The third time was the charm. It was just too frakking complicated.) 1. The Five worked together at a research facility; they were descended from the Cylons made by the humans on Kobol. The Five were *told* the end was coming; Anders said they saw warning signs in the form of people no one else could see. Sounds like Harveys to me. 2. They reinvented resurrection, which had fallen out of use (really? people had given up immortality? I have a hard time believing that), downloaded, and escaped back to the Twelve Colonies. The trip took thousands of years because Einstein was right about that relativity thing. 3. The Temple of Hopes was built by the Thirteenth Tribe three thousand years ago when they left Kobol; they prayed for guidance there, and it led them to Earth. The Five stopped there on the way back but didn't leave that vision for D'Anna; according to Ellen, "God" must have. 4. The Five discovered that the Centurians at the Twelve Colonies believed in one true god, so they thought the cycle would be broken. They stopped the first Cylon war by giving the Centurians what they wanted; they created *eight* Cylon models -- the seven we know, plus one called Daniel, whose copies were destroyed by Cavil. (That explains why the model numbers skip from six to eight. Why more males than females, I wonder?) Daniel was Ellen's favorite. Is the original Daniel still alive? Ellen said the *copies* were contaminated; nothing was said about the original. 5. Cavil, whom Ellen called John, was made to look like Ellen's father; she treated him like a son who had gone bad. Cavil hates being humanoid with the power of a thousand burning suns. He decided to punish the Five by killing them, downloading them without their original memories, and giving them a front seat to the destruction of the Colonies. (You like humans, huh? See how much you enjoy being one. Moohahahaha.) He was also the one who tortured Tigh, which makes sense now. As does his role as the instigator of the Cylon civil war. Cavil stopped sleeping twenty years ago. Maybe that's the reason he went nuts. I bet the annihilation of the colonies was Cavil's idea, too. This explains everything, really. And it even makes sense. "All of this has happened before and will happen again." And the parent/child human/cylon thing. Ellen and Cavil are like the flip, twisted side of Roslin and Adama. Dean Stockwell and Kate Vernon deserve gold acting stars for their masterful job in carrying an episode that was nearly all exposition. I never liked the original Ellen. I like this one, though. It's funny how I didn't think she was beautiful before, but now I do. Michael Trucco did a fabulous acting job in this ep, too. Anders remembered everything -- but only because of brain trauma. And now he's brain dead. (When he seized, he looked inhuman. Very creepy.) Let's hope there's a Cylon miracle coming. Maybe Boomer and Ellen should have brought along one of the Simons at gunpoint. Who knew? Meanwhile back at the fleet, I thought it was so sad that the Galactica was literally falling to pieces from poor workmanship and unexpected stress. I also thought that Adama would re-think his knee-jerk reaction to Cylon technology to fix it, and he did. What choice does he have? Who would defend the fleet with the Galactica gone? The Cylon base ship? The Galactica is the heart of the fleet. She has to stay alive, as much as the humans do. I loved that Boomer decided to rescue Ellen. It was like a big payoff for her character. I never did understand why she allied with Cavil. Maybe the writers did it for just this reason. It's okay with me. Bits and pieces: -- Whole new saga sell. "This has all happened before, and it will happen again. The Cylons were created by man. They rebelled. Then they vanished. Forty years later, they came back. They evolved. 50,298 human survivors. Hunted by the cylons. Eleven models are known. One was sacrificed." I loved how they included the old Cylons from the original series (although, yes, the footage was from *this* series). -- This week's survivor number: 39,556. Forty-seven dead. -- Roslin finally passed her job on to Lee, even though she planned to stay on as a figurehead. It was time. He'll do just fine, and maybe she can have some peace before she dies. -- This week's Most Obvious Symbolism was Ellen offering Boomer an apple. I originally thought of Snow White, but a number of people wrote to me that they saw it more as Eve, and they had a point. There was also Anders' internal damage mimicking Galactica's. And parallel plots about destructive, irrecoverable brain surgery. -- Back on Earth, Tory and Tyrol were in love. Tory Tyrol? :) You know, that might explain a bit why Tory was so eager to kill Cally. I also liked Boomer mentioning love or something like that and the scene shifting to Tyrol. I wonder if Boomer still loves Tyrol? -- The title of the episode was "No Exit." It's also a famous play by Jean-Paul Sartre that I had to read as an undergrad. The most famous bit from it is that "Hell is other people." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit -- Starbuck told an unconscious Anders that she thought she was Cylon number seven. That kind of fits. -- Ellen still likes the booze. Oddly, Tigh has given it up because the smell makes Six nauseous. I'm liking Tigh so much now that he and Six cooing about their baby has become kinda cute. -- If Saul Tigh was resurrected without his memories forty years ago, I assume his new body was a lot younger. Can they do that? I didn't think they could do that. -- Adama was chugging aspirin with his booze. Another hint that he's not well. -- Since Ellen and the other creators reinvented resurrection before, won't they be able to do it again? This has all happened before... -- The comedian who does the PC/Mac commercials played the brain specialist. That was kind of twisted. Quotes: Roslin: "It's time I let someone else do the heavy lifting." Anders: "Whoah. Oh, wow. Everybody's glowing." Including Starbuck. Hallucination? Did it mean something? Boomer: "He's teaching me to be a better machine. To let go of my human constructs." Ellen: "What about the swirl? Has he taught you that, yet?" Cavil: "I don't want to be human. I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear X-rays. I want to smell dark matter." Anders: "If the Cylons embraced love and mercy, then the cycle of violence could end." So that's the end of the series in a nutshell, right? Ellen: "You should have brought a tumbril." Nice reference there. A queen being taken to her beheading. Certainly not as exciting as last week, but it was really nice to get so many answers. Almost too many. Can there be too many? Billie View all comments or post a comment. |
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