Lucy Lawless - Battlestar Galactica - Season 2 Episode 8 Final Cut

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Lucy Lawless - Battlestar Galactica
D'anna Biers / Cylon Number Three

Season 2 - Episode 18

Downloaded Review

Review by KT
fsktl@aurora.uaf.edu

This is a very odd action adventure show to me. It breaks the common mold, that these shows have lots of fights. There's no big battles at all-just one small insurrection sub-plot. Oh and yeah, also some grrls playing "Tag-you're it!" with boulders.

Unlike Final Cut, Downloaded is not set on the ship except for a few scenes. I would have assumed all of the eps would be set primarily on the ship. Also, the story was not about the main characters. Sharon is a main character as is Six. But these two are not that Sharon and Six. So they're not really the main characters. But it seems to me that one of the main points of this show is the question, "How different are they from us?" (In terms of being human especially.) And I suspect that this is even more specifically the purpose of this particular ep-to explore that question more fully.

Man, this is a good show!

You know, it's not easy to try to analyze a serious show when you've only seen two episodes. Two WIDELY SPACED episodes. Laugh! I just don't know enough to feel competent to tease out the real subtleties. But, heck, I can at least talk about Lucy's acting. And about what I saw on screen.

And yeah, if Lucy is going to be in 10 eps next season, I shall have to catch up on the show and watch the series up to this point. *sigh* (My generous and sharing friend has them on DVD, happily.)

Okay!

They use Previously on Battlestar flashbacks from various eps to bring us up to speed. But as one who has not watched this show, the flashbacks raise a number of questions. (Even as they answer some others.) Whew!

I have so many questions actually that I have decided that I shall save them all to ask at the end of this post. In hopes that by making it easy to find the questions I'll get all of them answered. <Winning smile towards the BG experts.>

One thing I've noticed in the Xena DVD commentaries is Lucy's huge exasperation with "exposition." Whether she had to do it or other actors had to. When I was lurking on the X-Files forum when Lucy was on that show, I found out that they refer to this as "Being a cabbage head." They'll say, "Scully was the cabbage head in this scene, explaining the science background." (At which point their nit-pickers would reply, "Yeah, but what she said was really stupid. And wrong. And did you notice that the ambulance guy had the incorrect emblem on his uniform for his rank?" Man. And we think OUR nit-pickers are anal. . .

Anyway, I found out from the flashbacks that Six is religious. That wasn't apparent in "Final Cut".

Now, let me give another disclaimer of tough things I had to overcome to enjoy this ep.

Every time I get a tape from this friend, the sound sucks. I therefore can't hear Gaius or Six very well because they whisper a lot. Which actually is kind of funny. Just talking to the air should be a "marker"-whispering doesn't really help hide the fact you're talking to a figment of your imagination-it probably makes it worse if anything.

Even when they are alone they whisper. Which was maddening, due to the sound problem. When I pumped up the sound enough to hear them, it was so loud that it got distorted. I shall of course press on with talking about the ep-there may however, be gaps. Since there's always so much information passed in whispers. (Actually, that's true about life in general, isn't it, not just on this show.)

And you know, having a discussion between yourself and an avatar of yourself in the guise of another, is a clever and workable way to get exposition put out there without tormenting an actor with rote recitation of facts. Which, if the fill-in is REAL complicated, makes them look like those people one must never make eye contact with, walking down the street and telling themselves their life stories. Doing it as they did it here is clever and workable IF the viewer can hear it. Phffft.

One of my favorite flashbacks was when Sharon and Starbuck discuss Sharon being a cylon hybrid. Starbuck is amazed that "Cylons reincarnate." Sharon is right chipper about the advantages of that system. This ends with a very pregnant phrase, "Death becomes a learning experience." Wow.

Okay, then we get the "Nine months ago. Caprica" flashback where Six and Gaius go through a major explosion. And then we're switched to viewing some of the memories being downloaded into Six's new body. Underscored with that sharp irritating elevator pinging sound theme that is used at times in this show. I recognize it from "Final Cut", but I didn't make note of what was happening each time we heard it there. I'm thinking it might function as a theme for certain like events. As on Xena, where there was a set of motifs that signified types of characters or emotions or types of relationships. But I've seen all of Xena (and certainly much of it many times). For this show I shall just have to repeat the mantra that we always used in the final paragraph of all our archeological reports, and which while being true, we also hoped would lead to future work: "More research is needed."

(And on the more research of watching this ep for the fifth or so time, I realize that this sound motif is also in the credits. And when I notice that, I think to myself-"Oh! It's like the Law and Order snazzy cool sound". (Though not so cool as that one I don't think.)

The major focus of these rebirth downloads is the relationship between Six (does she have a name?) and Gaius. And the only dialogue in this sequence is her question to him, "Do you love me?'

I liked the visual process they used to show the memories being downloaded into the new adult embryo. Good visual storytelling. And Wow! Excellent editing. Very nice job.

Then Six awakens in the tub. Covered in a less thick, less constrictive, less rubbery kind of Hope's cocoon goo.

It's not just messy to be born again, it's also painful and terrifying. Six's heartbroken cry, "I died. I died" is utterly poignant. And guess who's there to ease her back into consciousness with great tenderness and loving support, whispering a comforting, "You're back with us". Yup, it's Ms. D'Anna Biers. Sporting a great new hair cut. And inspiring ponderous and importunate music to play on the soundtrack when we finally get to see just who it is who is petting Six's hair so tenderly.

Gods, Lucy is one GORGEOUS human being. (Or robot in this case.)

D'Anna speaks in a very soothing, very comforting tone, the tone most mothers use when speaking to their babies.

Other hybrids, including another Six are also at the rebirth. The other Six seems to show curiosity, possibly empathy, perhaps even an almost fear-filled memory bonding as she stares fixedly down at the newly reborn Six. Definitely a shared awareness of what she's going through and probably how it feels to her to do so.

Tub Six tells D'Anna that Gaius was with her which surprises not only D'Anna but also the other hybrids. Significant glances are exchanged. Six then asks with great impatience if he is alive. And in a lovely inside out deja vue moment, a new improved, very strong, nicely cleaned up, spiffy and totally "together" Gaius suddenly appears at Six's side. Only Six can see him. He is now haunting Six, instead of vice versa.

D'Anna asks Six if it would bother her if Dr. Baltar were dead. This Gaius warns this Six, "If they know how you feel about me, it would be a problem." So Six's reply to D'Anna consists of recovering her fumble of showing concern for Baltar by parroting the party line and excluding the whole truth. She merely says, "It would be unfortunate if he died. He was so helpful."

Diana tells Six she is a hero-that their plans succeeded beyond their most optimistic projections, "Thanks to you", said very lovingly, with great pride and with great flattery.

Then we switch to another flashback.

"Ten weeks ago. Battlestar Galactica,"

In a scene eerily reminiscent of Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald, we see Sharon surrounded by police attendants, walking down a corridor when a woman lunges out of the crowd and shoots her in the gut.

Immediately we slide back to the birthing tub, this time for Sharon's return to life. Again we see flashbacks to show the downloading going on. And again, the first thing she remembers also is making love with a human, just as Six did. (But without the kinky black underwear.) One of the flashbacks was stunning to me-it showed Sharon preparing to commit suicide by "eating her gun".

Once again, D'Anna is the primary rebirthing coach. (This must be the Biers Method of Birthing Babies we're seeing.) And just how come D'Anna gets to be the main contact for the hybrids as they're reborn?

D'Anna is a little more tough with Sharon. She suggests that she breathe, ride through the pain, that she'll be alright. (Which is very like the advice birthing couches give, actually-though the advice is to the mother giving birth, not to the newborn baby.)

D'Anna says, "You're going to be okay. Trust me." Then, "You're in God's hands." D'Anna as, if not god, a god substitute or at least an important acolyte who knows a lot about god and what s/he wants and how s/he operates.

Again a prior Sharon is present but again she's in the back as the prior Six was at Six's rebirth. This time for the Sharon's rebirth, Six is in the front, nearest the tub. The prior Sharon is not so involved in the rebirth as the prior Six was-she has a much more blank and stoic look on her face.

It surprised me to see that Sharon was restrained-she was handcuffed to a bar on the side of the tub. D'Anna again gently and tenderly touches the newborn's hair. Sharon's body shakes uncontrollably. She thrashes around helplessly in the tub, pulling on her handcuffs and kicking her feet.

Other hybrids are gathered around the tub also offering their reassurances. "Welcome home little sister." "We're going to take care of you." "We're proud of you, Sharon". Eerie music begins to build to a crescendo as newbie Sharon slides her eyes towards Prior Sharon. Prior Sharon smiles warmly and adds her reassurances, saying, "And we love you." This horrifies and possibly terrifies tub Sharon-she begins to scream, "NOOOOOOOO!" and appears to slip inside herself-she stops struggling so much physically and her legs rise up in a beginning of a possibly fetal position. She appears to deeply regret being reborn-it seems to be a truly terrible event for her. She definitely doesn't seem happy or very accepting of going around again.

Commercial.

Fade up on a planet seen from space. "Present Day. Cylon occupied Caprica."

We are in a plaza/park on Caprica. I think it's a D'Anna walking away from the camera. Two Sharons walk by chatting together. (Would you be a best friend of your own self?).There are a couple of Sixes in the background and that male hybrid. One Six and the male are watching two pure heavy metal cylons planting a tree. We hear spurts of whining machine noises as they reach out and flex their joints as they work. And when the pure cylons walk, we hear a stomping noise when their feet hit the ground.

We see the backs of Gaius and the newest Six sitting on a bench. Six talks about the rebirth of the plaza, it being a new beginning. Gaius is smoking a long cigarette, holding it in a very Ronald Coleman kind of European old-fashioned suave manner. He corrects her rather sharply, saying it's a memorial. He scolds her. Does she know how many people died in the park during the attack? "In this park alone?" Suddenly D'Anna is there leaning over the back of the bench, her face between them, unknowingly interrupting Six's conversation with Gaius.

In one of those excellent bits of dialogue this show excels in, D'Anna says in unwitting total rebuttal to Gaius' attitude, "It's going to be lovely, isn't it? A place to relax. Collect your thoughts." As D'Anna talks, the camera pulls back and we see twisted metal and broken concrete, validation of Gaius' comment on it being a battleground.

D'Anna's chipper and smiling as she talks about what a great thing it is that Six has a new body now. Then she suddenly sobers and asks, "How you doing?" Six tells her she's a little stiff and looks away as she talks about feeling awkward in her new body. D'Anna's stares at her with a look that seems just a bit assessing, focusing tightly on her as she sizes her up-kind of like a drill sergeant looking at a recruit whom she suspects may be either not quite up to snuff or else trying to be a goldbrick. But then she smiles at Six and says she used to be a klutz too, used to trip a lot. She walks around the bench and as she sits down next to Six, Gaius appears and sits down on D'Anna's other side.

D'Anna says, "You know what-you get over it". As they settle in on the bench, there is a lovely little bit of choreography. All three of them cross their right legs over their left legs exactly at the same time in synchronized swings.

So the antagonism, the fight over and also within the heart and soul of Six, has a very nice visual set up here. Six's polarity and the pulls on her that each absolutely opposite view of her actions for her "country's mission" create within her, now have literal faces that are also literally "in her face".

This reminded me so strongly of the triangle of Xena, Ares and Gabrielle. Ares and Gabrielle were the two sides of Xena's soul made flesh and there was the same fight over which part was really her or at least which part she should fully embrace. For Xena of course, the answer was both. As I've said before, I love that great visual of Ares and Gabrielle standing in a clinch in "God You Know", watching Xena kissing and seducing Caligula. With looks on their faces that say, "Damn! She is SO hot. And I ain't the one she's kissing!" And the two of them standing there just reminded me so strongly of one of those Italian iced cookies, one side frosted vanilla and one side frosted chocolate, one side light, one side dark. And knowing that with Xena, you're just never sure which side she'll take a bite out of next.

And we have that here-Six is the conflicted soul, examining and agonizing over what she's done. And Gaius and D'Anna are the cookie. Uh, OKAAAY, I think I've ground that metaphor totally to dust and crunched it under my heel. Let's lick the frosting off our fingers and move on.

Gaius just listens as D'Anna give Six advice. She's like a counselor or a mother confessor, suggesting that Six take this opportunity of having a brand new body to cleanse her soul. That any anxieties or remorse or guilt that Six might be feeling, she can "Just let it wash away." Six thanks her for her help. D'Anna thanks her for what she's done for the Cylons. She tells her she's a war hero and that they couldn't have won without her. Six does not look entirely thrilled with this assessment.

One of the male hybrids comes up and he also thanks Six for what she did for them in the war. She thanks him and then looks very thoughtful when he walks away.

Cut to next scene-present day on Galactica. Sharon is giving birth in sick bay. There have been complications-Sharon has a detached placenta. She is hemorrhaging and they have to take the baby by c-section.

Interesting comment from the doctor. "You people went to all the trouble to appear human and didn't upgrade the plumbing?" Is this because they were afraid to mess with it or is it because they had no idea how hard, dangerous and chancy giving birth is and never thought to better it? I love shows that make you think about the subtext of the scene/dialogue. The doctor picks up the scalpel.

Suddenly we are back on Caprica. We are inside somewhere, like maybe a parking lot, peering around a big blocky column looking out over the endless straight lines and colorless boxy buildings of the city.

Cut to D'Anna and Six walking along a balcony. They pass behind a number of hybrids who are leaning on the balcony railing, looking out over the city also. Most of them stand alone, not speaking to anybody else. There are only four "people" variations present, D'Anna, Six, Sharon and that male hybrid.

It's a really striking special effect that just works so well at defining this world. It makes you realize how bizarre it would be if there were only twelve human models on earth. Can you imagine? (They could, obviously.) It's so intriguing. Think about acting-would there be only one, maybe two hybrids who had the talent to act? And if so, there'd be only two people then playing all parts. I imagine they'll get variety through having children, if they ever manage to pull that off without those pesky humans butting in and stealing the child away.

This had to be a very complicated effect to stitch together. But how fun for the actors to be just hanging around, trying to look natural in each manifestation, while not looking like they're just playing someone trying to look natural in a handful of different poses. Complex, creative, and kewl.

The dialogue speaks to this weird dozen faces only reality. As D'Anna and Six walk by, the hybrids turn around and look at them. Six says something like, "I still can't get used to this" or "How can you get used to this?" D'Anna tells her that she's a hero now. That everyone calls her "Caprica Six. Like you're the only Six on the planet!" (Laugh! I love how Lucy says this in a tone that says how odd it would be to be the only Six in the world. What a GREAT line at showing how weird their "natural" is. In our world, we're all the only whomevers. And it's also funny that they call her "Caprica Six". Kind of acknowledging that she "got" the planet for them.

But I did wonder how they could tell each other apart-how can THAT Six be "known" as the hero one?

D'Anna does a kind of "I'm here to bury Caesar not to praise him" Mark Antony bit, speaking admiringly of Six's abominable behavior. "And what you did was incredibly difficult. To seduce a man so emotionally and physically so he grants you access to all the most closely guarded secrets of his people-I mean, that mission could be profoundly disturbing."

Gaius appears. "Disturbing? She mean sleeping with me or killing billions of people? Because I rather thought you enjoyed sleeping with me." (Nice facial reactions from Six as he says this.) And this statement by him hits the bull's eye of Six's dilemma-that she's a hero because she caused so many people to die. And her conscience is telling her she might be a monster because she caused so many people to die.

And note: the minute Gaius appears and starts talking, that insistent little elevator pinging sound plucks the soundtrack. And then, poof, he's gone in the next shot.

Right after Gaius says, "I rather thought you enjoyed sleeping with me", Six says D'Anna, "It was difficult at times." Laugh!

D'Anna replies, "See, nobody here can possibly understand what you've been through." And continues quickly, swinging right into her mission, "Which is why we need your help. There's another cylon who's been having trouble reintegrating after a download." D'Anna continues with a touch of I'm not sure what-uncertainty? Or perhaps a "We were afraid this might happen and it has" slightly embarrassed admission in her voice, "Another hero. . .actually. An Eight. Still insists on calling herself 'Sharon'." Lucy puts a lot of intensity in D'Anna as she asks Six for help.

Six summarizes D'Anna's words and current mission. "And you thought I could help." She turns away, Gaius appears again and she looks at him as she tells D'Anna she's still having problems of her own. Of course Gaius appears. He represents her "problems". And he nods in agreement with her statement that she's still having problems of her own.

D'Anna calls her "Caprica", underlining her unusual specialness as she continues trying to convince her. "Caprica, you don't understand. She really needs YOUR help. If we don't turn her around soon, there's talk of boxing her." Six does a little exposition, "Putting her memories in cold storage? You can't be serious!" Gaius gets in a dig at Six. "Well that's a charming way to deal with emotional problems. One might almost call it inhuman. Oh that's right-you are." Six gives him a kind of silent hiss.

D'Anna retreats a bit, tells Six this is a last resort. "But she's been regressing."

Suddenly we're looking down on the two hybrids from above, with masking on the lens to give us the view of looking through binoculars.

D'Anna continues. "Please." And she tells Six that Sharon is still living in the apartment she had when she thought she was human. ("Thought she was human." Hoooo-how scary is that? To wake up suddenly to the fact that you're a robot. Jeeez.)

D'Anna and Six walk off in different directions. Cut to the binocular holder. These are two human insurgents. They have been casing the joint. The female reports on the security (provided by heavy metal cylons). The male suggests they attack through the storm drains in the garage underneath the caf.

Cut to Galactica and the delivery. The baby is too premature-her lungs aren't developed. So they put her in a little isolation bed to give her oxygen. Sharon is still unconscious.

Cut to Six walking down a corridor and then pounding her fist on a doof. She's come to visit Sharon. Sharon has her name on a plate on the door. Sharon opens the doore. She's playing loud discordant music and asks Six if she's come to kick her out. Six says, "No."

Sharon knows she's there to help her with her "adjustment problems." Sharon does chin-ups while Six looks around her apartment, grooving on the music.

Sharon has lots of family pictures on her shelves. Six smiles approvingly and looks closely at them.

Sharon drops off the bar, turns off the music and declares, "This is home. I'm not leaving."

Six tells Sharon that she lived on Caprica for two years. And that she knew what she was, that she was only pretending to be human. Sharon says that if she knew what she was, then that makes Six a really good liar. And she leaves the room.

Elevator pinging noises and Gaius is there. He tells Six to start with the evidence. Wait no-he said elephants! He looks down at two small carved elephants on her table. Sharon returns and Six tells her the elephants are beautiful. "Hand carved" Sharon replies. Her mother gave them to her when she left home. Six points to a picture. "This her?" Sharon says, "Supposed to be. 'Course none of it's real. All fabricated for my mission. It's all a lie." Six says, "Following God's path is never easy." Gaius scolds her. "Oh, don't go religious with this one. What are you thinking!?"

Sharon echoes Gaius. "Do you think I care about your god?"

Six parrots, "God loves you." Sharon grabs a picture of the Galactica crew and says with emotion, "This is love. These people loved me. I loved them. I didn't pretend to feel something so I could screw people over. I loved them. And then I betrayed them. I shot a man I loved. Fracked over another man. Ruined his life. And why? Because I'm a lying machine. I'm a fracken cylon!" She throws the picture against the wall, breaking it.

Six gets cut on the face by the shards that fly around the room. Sharon immediately calms down. And apologizes. And goes off to get a bandage from the head.

Gaius congratulates Six for faking out Sharon-by scratching her face with her fingernail when she put her hands up supposedly to protect herself from the flying glass.

Sharon returns and says as she bandages the cut that she's never seen a cylon show fear before-especially a Six who is usually so hard-core. Gaius again congratulates Six for a job well done. But he tells her he's better and offers to help her. He begins to feed her dialogue. She repeats it to Sharon after she hears it from him. "I'm different. I'm more like you." Then they begin to say things totally in sync. "I had someone I met here. A man. I loved him. And I think he would have loved me eventually."

Sharon stares speechlessly at Six. Six stares at Gaius. Who stares back at her as the pinging noise plays again.

Cut to the insurgents (now three in number) who are timing a burning cigarette tucked into a clothespin to see how long it takes to consume itself thus snapping the clothespin closed and setting off a bomb I guess. The insurgents refer to the hybrids as "Skinjob". One of them questions the hybrid's mission-if they kill them, they just download into a new body, so what's the point. The other guy says that when the skinjobs download, they remember everything right to the end. So that they will remember being blown into tiny little pieces. And that's gotta hurt.

He adds that "Sooner or later the message sinks in that there is no safe place, not even a caf. So if you want to quit living through hell and die over and over again, then get the frack off our planet."

The cigarette takes three minutes, ten seconds to burn.

Commercial.,
 

Okay-while we wait for the commercials to be over, let's discuss what we've seen so far.

The cylon's world is a very bland, stark and dreary place. Their city is leached of colors. Everything is beige, grey, black or glass. The sky is endlessly grey with no blue in it. The buildings are unornamented boxes of stone, relieved only by bare metal rectangles of windows and balconies. They have that bureaucratic look about them-fortress-like, absolutely parallel sides, no break in the strict orderly regimentation, certainly no artistic curves. There are no straight lines in nature but there are in architecture. Bauhaus to the max!

This dreariness creates a feeling of chilling sterility. There's no warmth, almost no living material in their surroundings-no painted or even natural warm brown wooden doors or windows sashes. There sure isn't much beauty in their lives. But one would assume that robots "want" functionality, not necessarily beauty.

There is also a strong sense of being confined and controlled. Though the cylons are outdoors, the regimentation in their environment keeps them "in line". Aside from the structures, there are also lots of straight lines as a recurring motif in the surroundings, sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal, always reminiscent of the bars of a cage or a prison. The wall behind D'Anna and Six as they walk downstairs to the lower plaza has dark lines deeply incised across it. There are also small round holes very precisely and neatly spaced.

The first shot inside Sharon's apartment shows this exact same wall design. As Sharon runs down the staircase by the wall, there is a shot up through a metal grate floor above her that is made of flat bars. There are huge windows, all with Venetian blinds in front of them, slats open and again appearing as bars. Light comes through the blinds, slashing diagonal bars across Six as she walks down the stairs.

At first it seems that the look and feel when inside in this city is the same as when outside. But then we see that Sharon does have some things of beauty in her home-baskets, crystal, paintings. But perhaps this is part of the "None of it's real" decorations in her home.

The camera work enhances this sense of being confined. There are shots taken through chain link fences, there are many shots with bars in the foreground or the background, shots of blocky columns the camera has to move around in order to see beyond them.

In the high shot showing the insurgent's view of D'Anna and Six down on the plaza, there are large painted rectangles on the floor, like a giant checkerboard. And the squares are big enough for a person to stand in like a well placed pawn.

Randomness is not valued.

We do see some flowers and plants-after all, Gaius has told us this is a park. D'Anna and Six walk past a big concrete planter filled with flowers. But the flowers have no color to them either. They're all washed out, grayish white. When the women reach the bottom of the staircase, they walk past some foliage. The fronds are dull, dull green, their color like the color of plastic plants.

And I don't think this can be completely explained by the fact that they are at war. The look of this city reminded me so much of cities I'd seen in Siberia and the Russian Far East twenty years ago. All concrete and function. Big Brother's London of 1984 looks like this I bet.

(I wonder where they shot this. This is not one of the typical Vancouver locals you see in advertising. Heh.)

The people give off a sense of isolation to me. This sterile world they live in gives a sense of discordance. It's uncomfortable, it's edgy. And it's chilling to realize that it's peopled with imitation people. People who are literally only skin deep. And they apparently don't quite "get it". They don't seem to have the knack for the nuances of gracious living.

Even their clothes are not colorful, not fun, not flamboyant or exotic. Nope, their clothes are like their buildings. Just serviceable, functional. Certainly not beautiful in cut nor luxurious in feel. Nobody seems to be wearing anything to make them stand out-except perhaps for D'Anna's scarf. It flows, it's not pinned down, and it's not pure function-it's a bit of fashion! Perhaps a kind of sporty and independent flag of defiance--Big Brother would be noting that scarf. (And I would like to note that I'm not good at fashion but D'Anna's outfit seemed very late 70's, early 80's to me.)

Lucy on "Final Cut" was golden, bathed in light most of the time. Here she blends in more with her muted surroundings. Even her hair is not so blond as it was.

And sure, they inherited this world from the humans (I think), but still-this setting really looks like the home of robots. I bet that in the human days, the plaza pulsed with life, with people in clothes of many colors bustling along, with stands of street vendors, food carts, musicians, artists drawing caricatures, lots of noisy chatting, kids running around underfoot, music shops blaring the latest hot hit, newspaper stands filled with colorful magazine covers, even godsdamn mimes.

It's nowhere near like that under the cylons. They just don't show the urge towards senseless beauty and fun that humans have. I wonder, do they listen to music? (Other than Sharon.) Do they read stories? Do they learn from their history or the much longer human history? Do they create art to comment on their life? We know they do create religions. (What I don't' know is if it's only the hybrids who have belief in a god.) Will the hybrids eventually lead the other cylons to these intrinsically human needs?

Many years ago one spring, I saw an over six foot tall, well proportioned woman walking down Sixth Avenue around 54th or so street in New York. She was wearing a blue bikini (a very staid one compared to the ones women run around in today but still showing a lot of skin for being in Manhattan's business district). Over the bikini she wore an open, short, see through, white gauzy robe that fluttered around her in the breeze. She wore bright blue spike heels on her feet and had a huge, brilliant red rose taped to the side of her shaved head. Her skin was a lovely rich caramel color that beautifully complemented the scarlet of the rose. She walked with the grace and bearing of a visiting dignitary. I don't think this cylon world would ever see such a miraculous vision as that walking around THEIR streets. Naw, D'Anna's scarf is probably as daring as they get.

Whoops-commercials are over-back to the show.
 

Pinging noise as Six shares with Sharon her memories of being with Gaius. We see the house where they died. (Or it's possible that she died but protected him from the blast and from death with her body-not sure since I don't know the show's history.) She says it's her favorite spot in the universe. Gaius replies, "Yes, magical. Too bad you nuked it." Six glares at him. She tells Sharon that after she downloaded, she went back to the ruins of the house. Sharon asks her why. "Like you, I was looking for some sort of connection to him" She picks up a picture of Sharon's honey. And says that she herself had kept a few of his things until she realized they were keeping her from truly embracing her new life. Sharon asks her what she did with them. "I burned them." The two women stare at each other. Six acknowledges Sharon's unspoken question/comment by saying, "I felt liberated."

Gaius is preparing a drink. (It's a bit disconcerting-him being so suave with that martini shaker put me in mind of a comedy of manners-I kept waiting for him to say, "Tennis anyone?") Instead, he says, it's a beautiful story. And it's a shame it's all a pack of lies. He gives Six a smug, brittle amused look. Six gives him a kind of helplessly upset look in return.

Nice little sequence here-Six reaches out for the drink Gaius is handing her. But then the camera shoots her from another angle and of course Gaius is not there so she's sitting with her hand reaching out to thin air. She "recovers" by putting her hand to her hair. Sharon asks who the guy was. Six says maybe she's heard of him-Gaius Baltar. Sharon has of course. She says, "He gave you access to the colonial defense grid. He was the one who betrayed us?" The "us" is picked up by Gaius immediately. "Us. Oh I love it. This one thinks she's more human than cylon. Just like someone else I know."

Six and Gaius stare at each other. It's fascinating that Six is a cylon who destroyed a world for the purpose of her people. Gaius is a human who betrayed his world for what, sex? (I HAVE to watch the other eps.)

And we see that both of them are locked together in guilt over this.

And you know, it must be fun for the actors to get to play their same characters in a totally different way. Like Lucy with Meg or Diana.

On Galactica, the weak and shattered Gaius is always being manipulated by Six. She presents herself as really caring about him, helping him handle his problems, totally supportive. But here on Caprica, with the situation being reversed, this Gaius is beyond angry-he's FURIOUS. He snaps at Six. He torments her. He's her tough love conscience. And Six in turn finds this Gaius REALLY IRRITATING.

Gods, there's heat between this pair of Gaius and Six. More than between the ones on the ship, I feel. A little anger goes such a long way towards igniting passion. And this Gaius is just SO angry.

And of course, since they inhabit each other's minds, what we have is her dream of him, his dream of her. They literally create each other. And it's fascinating to see how their dreams imagine each other and their relationship. And how different they are.

Man, this is GOOD writing.

Sharon asks Six if he still works for the cylons. Six asks in confusion, "What?" Sharon replies, "On Galactica?" Six is stunned. "He's alive?" Sharon tells her he's the vice-president of the colonies. Six is speechless, blinking in confusion. And thought. So we find out that this Six doesn't know that Gaius is alive. And she believes that she loves the Gaius she's left behind.

Cut to the ship. There's a meeting going on with the president, the vice president, Commander Adama and Tigh. Madam President says, "If the baby does survive, the question is, 'What do we do with it?'" Baltar says, "Do? What are you suggesting? That we throw it out of an airlock?" The president says, "I don't make suggestions Mr. Baltar, if I want to toss a baby out an airlock, I'd say so." Gaius is gratified to hear that infanticide is not on the table. Tigh reminds them it's not a baby, it's a machine. Baltar reminds them it's half machine, half human. And they need to keep that half in mind.

Adama says, "The cylons went through a great deal of trouble to create this thing. Should go without saying that if it's good for them, it's gotta be bad for us." The president completely agrees and says that they can't turn it over to Sharon to raise-"That would be disastrous." Adama adds that if the cylons aboard the fleet "find out this thing's been born, they're gonna make a play for it."

Suddenly Six moves out from behind Gaius and says, "You can see where this is headed, Gaius. We're going to have to take our child." Their child?! Is that true? Or is this lies from Six to Gaius? To make him want to protect her? Damn, I am going to HAVE to watch this show!

Cut to the baby in her isolette. Sharon and her honey are visiting their child, touching her. We find out the baby's name is Hera. Laugh.

Sharon is smitten by love. She coos out, "We MADE her." The boyfriend says, "Almost makes you want to believe in the cylon god." Sharon immediately sobers and stares up at him questioningly. He adds, "Almost." They smile Sharon puts her head down on his shoulder. She gives a throaty, "I love you so completely." He closes his eyes as he holds her.

(Don't humans have a god?)

Cut to Caprica. People walking in the plaza. HEY-there's a new guy! One with male pattern baldness walking with a Six.

Fade to the parking garage under the plaza. The insurgents surge out of a shaft (that allows access to the storm drains, I guess) carrying items of mass destruction.

Cut to the cafe We see another new guy from the back, along with all the usual faces. Sharon, Six and Gaius are sitting at a little table. Sharon asks, "Why do you think they kept it from you?" Gaius says it's the wrong question. Six says, "The right question is why did she get me to work with you, knowing that you'd tell me the truth? She knew I had feelings for Gaius. Knew that I had trouble letting go of him." Sharon: "She must have know it would trigger those feelings and those memories. She's fracking with you. Can't you see that?" Six: "But why? Gaius declares that it's perfectly obvious and that for a self-aware cybernetic life form, sometimes she can be unbearably obtuse. Six is tired of his sarcasm and snaps at him, "Oh for god's sake!" (Which confuses Sharon.) Gaius snaps back, "Careful". And suddenly D'Anna is there.

Smiling, friendly D'Anna, leaning over her grrls and cheerfully asking them, "Everything okay?" Sharon and Six are startled. They don't know how to respond. They look at each other and D'Anna with yeah, pretty guilty and somewhat scared looks. (That's what they get for gossiping behind someone's back.) D'Anna obviously realizes something is going on. Six finally fumbles out a short little laugh and a "Yeah, fine. Just talking with Sharon here." D'Anna gets serious, becomes a real inquisitor and wants to know, "Yeah, what about?" She scans Sharon up and down and ends looking into her eyes, letting Sharon know she expects an answer. Sharon looks for help from Six but then gropes for her own reply. "Sheeee. . .asked me to move out."

In a really nice physical acting move, Lucy makes a grand gesture and gets up from her crouch behind them in one fluid movement. She makes a satisfied "Ahhh" noise followed by a perky, affirmative, "You know what--which is what we've been asking her for weeks." She walks around the table and sits down. (With a little swing of her butt.) "I was kind of hoping that you'd see the light after talking to our friend here." She props her cheek on her fist and gives a fakey little social smile that doesn't shine in her eyes as she slouches at the table as if relaxing in a circle of friends. Gaius says, "She's is lying, unfortunately. She has no wish to see Sharon cured. They're just going to do it. They're going to box her."

Six looks at Sharon in dismay. Sharon is staring fixedly back as she sips from her coffee cup.

Now how can Gaius know this? Surely this is Six's fears running around her head.

Cut to the insurgents. They've strung up their bombs. The woman says there are at least 40 cylons in the caf. They set up their cigarette fuse. The woman and one man take off.

Cut to the cafe. Six is saying "We've just made a breakthrough. She's agreed to move out of her apartment". D'Anna takes in the info but doesn't really react. Six prods, "Didn't you Sharon?" Sharon replies after a slight hesitation, "Yeah. I'm moving out of my apartment."

D'Anna looks toward Six, gives a little smile and turns to Sharon and asks, "When?" I thought at first she meant, "When did you decide this", but Sharon answers it as questioning when she will move out. "Whenever."

D'Anna calls the bluff. She makes one of those "why not" mouth/facial gestures and perkily asks, "What about now? I'll help! The apartment's right upstairs." Sharon and Six are giving happy little covering smiles. Sharon says "Sure." Then adds, "Let me just get some things." (Presumably the pictures of her loved ones?) D'Anna is sitting there with a weird little anticipatory fixed smile on her face. Six and D'Anna get up to follow. D'Anna says, "Good work Six. Must have been some chat." Six says, "Yes, we had lots to talk about." As they walk away, Gaius warns Six, "She's right behind you." Six answers, "I know."

Nice editing in this scene between medium shots of the three women at the table and very tight close-ups. And again I love the subtext of the dialogue and the looks. "She's right behind you" indeed. The woman who plays Sharon is a very good actor.

Back to the lone insurgent continuing to set up the explosives. Cut to a high overhead shot of the three women walking single file down a corridor, boxed in again. Cut to the insurgent. Cut back to the women walking up the stairs. D'Anna is last and she suddenly smiles at the other women's backs. Immediate cut to a close up of a cylon's long, nasty, lethal looking fingers clacking around a door. The cylon security guard comes through the door into the garage making its rounds. We hear again the clanging metal sounds of a machine at work and the stomp of his metal feet hitting the floor. The insurgent hides behind a car-he's waiting to protect the burning cigarette fuse from the security guard. Tight shot of the burning cigarette. Back to the women. They walk in total silence. D'Anna is giving Six an assessing look as they curve around a landing. Back to the garage. Back to the women. D'Anna still watchful-it's almost like she's holding a mental gun on them to keep them moving. Back to the garage-the cylon notices the cigarette. Back to the staircase. Garage. Staircase. Sharon slides her hand beneath her jacket, like she's about to pull something out. The cylon reaches for the cigarette. The insurgent shoots the cylon. Many, many times until he runs out of bullets. The cylon is still reaching for the cigarette when the bomb explodes.


Commercial.



DAMN, that was one fine sequence. Excellent building of suspense with that burning cigarette and the cylon. Nicely, nicely done.

Back to Galatica

The Prez is talking to the doctor. She tells the doctor the baby will not be raised by the cylons nor will they take the risk of cylon agents getting a hold of her. She tells the doctor she needs his help immediately. The doctor says he needs some names. Her assistant (?) gives him a list of names of people who are capable, anonymous and can be trusted.

The doctor says to the Prez, "You've thought of everything, haven't you." Madam President answers, "I hope so."

(I wish she had more scenes-she's a very good actor. I really enjoyed the scenes she had with Lucy in Final Cut. I'd like to see more of them together.)

Cut to a shot of Six lying unconscious on the ground among huge blocks of rubble. Broken metal and rocks cover her from the waist down. Pan to D'Anna who is standing nearby, bent over, asking Sharon if she's alright. Sharon is hemmed in by broken masonry but is awake and moving. D'Anna moves some rocks to free her. All the women have wounds, dirt, scrapes and some blood on their faces. Sharon asks what happened and D'Anna tells her that there's been an explosion. Sharon looks around and asks where Six is. D'Anna says, "Her body's dead." (Oooooo-"Her BODY'S dead." But of course, not her soul. Again, such GOOD dialogue!)

Six grinds out through clenched teeth and compromised breathing, "Not yet." D'Anna and Sharon go to her and lift a big metal frame off her lower body which uncovers her deeply cut, severely wounded leg.

D'Anna says very matter of factly and without any emotion, "It would have been better if the explosion hadda killed her. There's nothing we can do about the pain until we get outta here." She pulls off her scarf to give to Sharon to use as a pressure pad to put on Six's leg. D'Anna leans over Six and suggests, "Six. I can get a cross beam and put you out of your misery."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHH! You know, when I saw this, I didn't laugh. But reading it over, it's a hilarious offer. It's just so bizarre. It's so inhuman. Six broke her leg so D'Anna want to "put her down". So matter of fact about death-because, kinda like in XWP, death doesn't matter here. The hero always shows back up somewhere.

Six shakes her head no to D'Anna's pragmatic offer and says in great pain in her hampered breathing style, "I'm not gonna give up on life again."

"I'm not gonna give up on life again." Fascinating. What another great line. I just love this writing.

D'Anna says coldly, "It's your choice." There is no sympathy in her face or voice. Nor much concern either. Six is panting in pain. D'Anna is totally separate, she's not trying to help Six at all nor involving herself in her pain. She's obviously still thinking Six is being impractical-she should just let her kill her. Sharon comes up with a bit of wood to use as a splint and pulls Six's leg straight. Six gives a sharp gasp of pain followed by a few pants. D'Anna, still totally disengaged from Six's pain and suffering just ignores her and asks Sharon, "Where the heck are we anyway?"

Sharon replies, "Must be in the garage. North (?) entrance might be that way." D'Anna gets up and walks off saying she's going to start digging. Sharon gives her a glance as she continues to tend to Six. She tells her, "You're going to be okay."

There is a coughing sound from across the room. D'Anna (who has removed her jacket and stripped down to a dark brown tank top) says somewhat cheerily, "A survivor!" Sharon says yeah and they both head over towards the noise.

They roll away some rocks. It sounds to me like D'Anna says cockily, "Hang on honey!" (But I could be wrong about the "honey".) And, "We'll get you out." They continue to move rocks and at one point after working together sliding a big one away, D'Anna swings her head down while Sharon is bringing her head up and there is a distinctive little "bonk" sound as they bang their heads together. Sharon puts her hand up towards her head while D'Anna just gives one short shake of her head. (I'm laying money that that wasn't scripted. Grin.)

They uncover legs and pull the person out into the light. It's the insurgent. And he's not a face they know. Which on this world of course, is VERY unusual.

D'Anna swings her head to stare at Sharon. There is an acknowledgment that this is an unexpected event, but there is no emotion on her face-yet the lack of emotion in her look says volumes. It's a stupendous piece of acting-it's the way a machine might well show surprise. Except that of course they don't show surprise. It's hard to explain, but it struck me as just a perfect expression for that D'Anna to use in response to a situation like this.

The insurgent thanks them, saying he thought he was a goner. D'Anna turns back towards him, lifts her foot and kicks him viciously in the face. He's out cold.

She bends down to take his gun. "Fracken human. You know he probably set that explosion." Sharon asks, "What, for the resistance?" (And I swear, she says "resistance" like a born New Yorker.) "Why? No military value to the cafe." D'Anna stands up holding his gun.

As Lucy stands up, the way she holds her body makes me suddenly realize that she's playing this D'Anna differently now. D'Anna has dropped the artifice she had been using to manipulate the grrls. She's not friendly, not charming, not maternal, not sympathetic and not cunning. She's not trying to fool the other hybrids -she's not hiding anything anymore. She's D'Anna stripped down to being a machine with a human face. At this point, she's just all about surviving. She thinks Six should just die and perhaps it's true that she knows that Sharon is going to be boxed anyway. She's totally different in her gestures, expressions and her posture. She's a machine bent on rescuing herself so she can fulfill her primary mission. Damn, Lucy is a good actor.

D'Anna points the gun at the insurgent saying, "Humans don't respect life the way we do." Sharon jumps up and grabs D'Anna hands, shoving the gun up into the air. She screams, "No!" Then more calmly, "I won't let you kill him."

D'Anna gives her a very enigmatic look. It seems that she's surprised by Sharon's actions but also really, truly intrigued by them. She appears to be trying to figure out why Sharon is acting this way, what would make a cylon do this. She appears almost fascinated. She's very quiet and still, she's not struggling for the gun, she just looks deeply into Sharon's eyes. Her face is open and assessing and on the verge of cheerful. Sharon appears both determined and a little scared-what will come of her action? At this moment and in the future?

Six, lying propped up against some rocks calls over, "She's right. Don't kill him."

D'Anna rather impatiently (obviously thinking "Why WON'T that grrl just let me kill her?") snaps out, "Why not?" and I think she's truly asking. Though they frustrate her, she's truly trying to figure these two out. Gaius appears with his usual whining. "Why not kill him? You've already killed billions of people. Do you honestly believe one more body's going to weigh any heavier on your conscience? Which is something that you don't have. Do you?"

Six says, still somewhat breathless from her wounds and pain, "We should interrogate him. Find his accomplices."

This D'Anna can relate to. She gives a little affirmative grunt. And then gives the grrls a happy smile-to show them that now they're cooking, now they're thinking like they should. She says in a very sweet voice and with a bigger smile, "Okay." Then, "You can let go now Sharon." Sharon slowly pulls her hands away from the gun. D'Anna sighs a few times, like bringing herself down from her killing high. She looks away and then slides her eyes back towards Sharon's while giving her a devilish look. Sharon's obviously not totally convinced that everything is okay but she warily backs away. With a nice big smile, D'Anna tucks the gun in the back of her waistband.

It's a cool scene. Lucy acts like a tightly controlled psycho who's enjoying herself in it. Both actors do a great job.

D'Anna kneels down to the unconscious insurgent and rips an emblem on a thong off his neck. Sharon says "It's a (something) fleet I.D". D'Anna reads the name. "Thrace. Kara." Sharon grabs it and says in a broken voice, "Starbuck?" D'Anna very matter of factly fills Sharon in. "She was on Caprica a couple of weeks ago". Sharon looks stunned. D'Anna continues, "She escaped with the help of another Sharon." D'Anna gives this Sharon an "Ain't that ironic"? little smile. Sharon is thinking about the implications of him wearing the pendant. "If she gave him this, he meant something to her." D'Anna takes the pendant, gives it a contemptuous look and then tosses it away. "Well, ain't it sweet." (This was a very Xena moment to me. It's about the only time in the whole ep where I could imagine Lucy as Xena doing exactly what Lucy as D'Anna did.)

The pendant falls by Six who picks it up. Gaius says, "You have it in your hand. Hard physical proof of one person's love for another. If only you felt this deeply about us." Six answers, "I did. I do. I love you, Gaius." He asks, "Where's the tangible proof?" Oooooo, she gives him SUCH a look!

Cut to the sick bay in Galactica. Sharon is weeping by the isolette. The doctor says the baby went into respiratory distress and they lost her. Sharon accuses the doctor of murdering her. And demands to know who ordered it. "Adama?. The president? Who?" The doctor tells her he doesn't kill patients. That they did the best they could. Sharon attacks him. When the guards move in to protect him, she screams out, "You're all murderers!" as they drag her away.



Commercial.

Back to Galactica-two soldiers are releasing the baby's ashes into space.

Galactica's Gaius enters a room where Six is sitting waiting for him. She says, "You let them murder our child." Gaius kneels before her and tells her how sorry he is and that he had tried to save her. Six says, "God's will is that our child should survive. His will was that she would lead the next generation of God's children. She grabs Gaius arms and pulls him up. "His will was that you would protect her." She slams him against the wall and fiercely whispers in his ears. And I can't make out one word she says. It does scare the snot out of Gaius though.

On to the next scene where we see a young woman cradling the still living baby and thanking the president, the doctor and the president's assistant (?) for giving her the baby. She had just lost her own baby. The assistant says that the adoption must be kept absolutely secret, that the mother is a Pegasus officer and must remain anonymous for political and religious reasons. The young woman gives her word. The president requests that she be allowed to drop in from time to time to visit the child. The mother agrees. She, the baby and the assistant leave. The president thanks the doctor and says, "As far as the cylons know, this child no longer exists. That is a good, GOOD thing." (SHADES OF HOPE! And we all know how badly that turned out.)

Cut to the insurgent coming back to consciousness from D'Anna's kick to his face. Oddly enough, behind him is a car that has the license plate, "SEXYMOM". Laugh-I wonder if this is some reference to something in the show from the past or if it's just a new little joke of some kind.

He feels for his gun (or maybe his penis-you know how boys are) as he sits up. Pan to the three women sitting on the other side of a cleared space. Six and Sharon are sitting on the floor among the rubble. D'Anna is perched on a big flat boulder, head and shoulders above the other women.

She's absolutely in charge. She's so powerful. So in control.

She lifts the gun up and asks very calmly but without much of a question in her voice since she knows the answer, "This what you're looking for?"

She quirks the right side of her mouth into a fleeting smile. He stares at her. She says in a very neutral tone, like a kid giving another kid's toy back on the playground, "You can have it. Here." And she tosses it on the floor between them. But we playground veterans all know that the kids who take your toys sometimes just pretend to be giving them back to you. They WANT you to pick it up. So you probably shouldn't.

Six asks, "What are you doing?" D'Anna is sitting totally relaxed, her right leg crossed over her left leg, her upper body leaning forward, arms crossed over her lap. No tension apparent in her at all. She answers, again in a neutral calm manner and again with a friendly open smile, "Just making it easy for him to get what he wants." This is so low key. It's so discordant-no sweat, no trace of fury, vengeance, hatred or fear-which would be the much more likely responses to his attack upon her country and the beings who inhabit it. It is so chilling. Instead, she's just having a nice conversation with the girls and the boy.

(Good gods-I, who hardly ever notices some things, notice that D'Anna has a ring on the ring finger of her left hand. Is she married? Engaged? It's just not something that would slip by the production crew-it has to be deliberate. I don't think I've seen anyone else wearing a ring on the show. But of course, I haven't been looking for that. And of course, I've only seen two eps.)

D'Anna is smiling at the insurgent. She offers in a soft, friendly, let's play voice, "C'mon. I'll give ya a head start". Again, reminiscent of classic playground bully challenges, which though they matter a lot to the kids involved, don't usually entail REAL life and death situations as this one does. At least for him.

As I rewatch this, it suddenly strikes me that she's a cat toying with a mouse. UH--on a playground. (*sigh*-Mixed metaphors. But I obviously hate giving up them too soon. Grin. Let's see how soon we get to the sandbox. Or the swings. . .)

The mouse refuses the big tawny cat's offer. "I'm fine where I am." Suddenly there's a muted explosion above their heads. D'Anna ducks and looks up, Makes sure the ceiling isn't falling down on her. She smiles, sweeps the other women with a glance and turns back to the insurgent to announce with a big smile, "Hey-they're coming for us." Pause. "And YOU." With a bit of a taunt in her calm voice, she continues, "They'll be very interested in you."

Sharon interrupts. "Leave him alone."

D'Anna turns her attention to Sharon and becomes the school marm. She starts off saying, "Sharon" in that "pay attention, I'm preparing to give you a scolding" type of sad to say it's necessary tone of voice many of us remember from school days. Sharon looks up at her.

And now the real, unadorned, true feelings displayed D'Anna emerges. "You're a hero of the cylon. Now you're just a broken machine who thinks she's human." Close-up of Six's face as she slides her eyes towards D'Anna. Close up of Sharon closing her eyes and shaking her head.

D'Anna gets up off her boulder and squats down before Sharon. She whispers to her. "But you're not a human Sharon. And you never will be." Sharon whispers back, "Yeah, well at least I'm not a murderer." D'Anna totally relaxes her shoulders and repositions her head as she makes a little assessing "Hmmmm" sound. Again, Lucy's acting is so nuanced and so unusual. I love these little things she does that you just don't see a lot of other actors doing-they're not stereotypical reactions.

Sharon declares, "I have a conscience. And I know the difference between right (miniscule pause and then greater emphasis) and wrong."

Close up of a tormented look upon Six's face.

D'Anna's reply is said in a tone people use when affirming something good about another person, the quality of voice one would use to say, "You are a good and kind human being". But what she says while wearing a sweet smile is, "A murderer is *exactly* what you are." The substitution of a soothing positive tone instead of one of anger and accusation when saying a sentence like this is SO striking. It's so chilling in its discordance.

Sharon gets a personal flashback and relives her shooting of Commander Adama. SHADES OF ALTI! Return to the present. Sharon snaps her mouth shut tight. She is mute with pain. Close up of Six's face with tears in her eyes. Gaius intrudes. "Life is short. But the next one's not. Let your heart adrift. And your soul (ARGH! I cannot understand what he says next due to sucky sound. *sigh*) Six says, "I love you Gaius. My heart and soul are yours." D'Anna turns towards Six whom we see staring off into the space where Gaius is.

Suddenly there's another explosion. Sharon stands up and walks away from the squatting D'Anna who turns her head and smiles as Sharon leaves.

D'Anna puts on a "teasing aimed at the kids adult face", turns towards the insurgent and in a teasing voice to match her face says, "They're nearly here." He stares at her without making a movement or a sound.

Gaius asks Six, "You know why they wanted you to work with Sharon?" I THINK he says as he continues, "So you'd lose your mind. They're gonna box you darling. Just like they're gonna box Sharon." Six turns to D'Anna and states, "We're dangerous." Her sudden involvement and apparent total change of subject catches D'Anna off guard. She says "What?" in a kind of "what the furk are you talking about-why did you change the subject?" way. Six continues. "Sharon and I. We're celebrities in a culture based on unity."

The crafty D'Anna seems to surface. She makes a "You're totally wrong" facial expression as she shakes her head saying softly and almost sadly, "Nooo." Six turns to Sharon. "Our voices count. More than hers. More than others. We're two heroes of the cylon right? Two heroes with different perspectives on the war." D'anna gives her a look of contempt. "Perspectives based upon our love of two human beings." Six tells Sharon that that's why D'Anna wanted Six to work with her-because she knew that Sharon would tell her that Gaius was still alive. "She wanted me to lose my mind."

D'Anna stands up from her squat, giving Six a kind of "Game's up" look. Sharon is watching D'Anna closely as she takes in what Six has said.

D'Anna looks from one to the other as she says, "No. You're corrupted by your experiences." Six closes her eyes as her epiphany (received through her mental dialogue with Gaius) is validated. D'Anna gives her beautiful smile as she chuckles out with unseemly happiness, "You're a waste".

Gaius appears and says, "Believe your eyes. Ignore the truth." (Something about proof). And "Speak from your heart. Say the things that you know to be true." Six says to Sharon, (Something that is impossible for me to hear with the volume high, with the volume low, with my face smashed against the screen trying to lip read a two-dimensional mouth) so, "<Whisper whisper whisper>. . .They're all sinners in the eyes of God. That's what you and I know. That's what they don't want to hear." Sharon adds, "Because then they'd have to rethink what they're doing." Close up of D'Anna giving Sharon a kind of "Don't go there" look but she's listening intently. Sharon continues, "They'd have to consider that maybe the slaughter of mankind was a mistake!"

Suddenly rubble falls with a whoosh (grin) from the ceiling behind D'Anna. She jumps away, the insurgent grabs the gun that was still on the floor. He fires it I think at D'Anna who ducks behind some broken masonry. Sharon charges into him and knocks the gun out of his grasp. It clatters to the floor near D'Anna's hiding place.

D'Anna's head pops up. She takes a quick glance around and then jumps out and grabs the gun. And swings it to bear on the insurgent in a perfect Dirty Henrietta huge barrel pushed right into the camera's face homage stance.

D'Anna lets out a relieved breath of air and with a happy shake of her head and an absolutely angelic smile of beatific ecstasy, declares in sheer sweeping joy "God loves me!"

Proving that "Pride goeth before a fall", that devilish Six suddenly rears up behind D'Anna and smashes her across the back of her head with a huge boulder. D'Anna spins around to face Six. (With a very characteristic stiff shoulder movement used when turning towards someone when she's surprised that I've seen Lucy use on Xena. Unfortunately, there is no reaction shot of her face-we only see her from the back.) Six grunts out something I can't hear while swinging the big boulder to smack D'Anna again, this time giving her a vicious blow across her face. Finally D'Anna is down, eyes open and unseeing, her forehead cracked and bleeding.

Fascinating that while Six keeps reassuring people by saying "God loves you", D'Anna makes it "God loves me."

Sharon pries the gun from her cold dead hand and then leans down to help Six up.

There's another explosive sound from the rescuers. Sharon looks up and says, "Looks like they're almost here."

Six tells the insurgent, "You should get out of here while you can." (And says something else I can't make out.)

The insurgent is suspicious. "Is this some kind of trick?" Sharon shakes her head no.

Six hands Sharon Starbuck's pendant and says, "You can stay and be tortured if you want. Your call." Sharon offers the pendant to the insurgent. He looks at them suspiciously for a bit, but then he snatches it. Cut to a close up of the pendant, showing the name "Thrace" on it.

The insurgent asks, "Who are you? What kind of people are you?"

Six answers, "I don't know" in a manner suggesting it's a question she's been asking herself that she hasn't found the answer to yet. He clenches his fist around Starbuck's pendant (in a rather overly theatrical gesture I thought) and then begins to weave his way through the rubble. Sharon calls, "Hey wait". In a surprising move (to me at least), Sharon tosses him the gun. He leaves.

Sharon squats down a bit aways from D'Anna and reaches out to check for a pulse in her neck. The way you would check a snake to see if it's dead--she doesn't seem to want to get real close to her. Sharon is panting as she leans over. She asks worriedly, "How long till she downloads and tells them what happened?" Six says, "We had a lot of people in the caf. At least 36 hours before they get to her. Long enough."

Sharon asks, "Long enough for what?" "To change things for the better." Six is not just another rock thrower-she's also an idealist.

Sharon shifts uneasily. "What are you talking about?" Six turns away from her as Gaius appears at her side. He stares lovingly at her for a long silent moment and then says with great intensity, "I have never. . . loved anyone more in my life than I love you now." Six stares at him, calm and at peace. She says, "(Whisper whisper) from the? beginning. And a way to live in Gods' love. She turns to Sharon with tears in her eyes. "Without hate. Without all the lies." Sharon stares back, also with tears in her eyes. "All they need is for someone to show them the way. (Whisper whisper whisper.) (MADDENING, eh?)

Six reaches her hand out to Sharon. Sharon looks at it. Hesitates. She looks down, thinking it over. Then she says determinedly, "I'm with you" and she reaches out and grasps Six's forearm. Six slowly breaks into a smile. Sharon kinds of grimaces through her tears.

Suddenly a strong, very bright beam of light bursts upon the two women. Cut to the regular male clone peering through a small cleared passage the rescue team has opened. He yells to the rest of the crew. "We found them! They're alive." Sharon yells back, "Yes. We are." They look at each other. Six is smiling broadly. She repeats, "We're alive." Sharon nods.

Cut to Sharon's baby and her adoptive mother on Galactica. The mother peers out a small porthole. The camera pulls back to show her face through the porthole. And then pulls back further to show us the fleet. A small ship pulls out and zooms away. I wonder if that means anything.

The end.


What a wealth of multiple texts in these last few moments of images and dialogue between Sharon and Six.

"We're alive" can obviously be taken in the literal sense of we've survived the explosion and our confrontation with that insane Beirs. But "We're alive" can also refer to their raised consciousness due to their experiences, due to their human bodies interacting with other humans. And also, "We're alive" can be cast in a revolutionary sense-in willfully making a decision to reach towards a better life that not just permits but demands in their conscience and in their souls that they will move beyond the constraints of their society of robots-they will defy the prevailing wisdom which makes enemies of any "other" that is not them and calls for their total destruction. (But they'll make an exception for that insane Biers woman.)

And of course my crowded, messy, cluttered slob of a mind also pulled out a flash of Pinocchio-with a post-feminist twist, they could well be thinking, "I'm a REAL grrl now!"

And the visuals again are so good at telling the story. Literally and figuratively. Just as they grasp arms and form their alliance, the rescue team arrives. And essentially, the sun comes out for them. From having been entombed in that broken, decaying, dark and dangerous underworld, they are now bathed in a ray of pure white light-resurrection beckons them. Like Saul on the road to Damascus, they are saved-physically, mentally and certainly spiritually. They "see the light".

Annnnnnd, also, we get the visual metaphor of moles. Moles who spend time underground yes, but also in the spy business jargon sense of "moles"--hidden spies/revolutionaries who pretend to be part of a society in order to destroy it from within.

And I guess that's it for me and my metaphors.

Excellent, excellent show. Extraordinary writing. Marvelous acting. And, most important of all for my delight, great job by Lucy.

So a few additional comments on this ep.

First, my friend who taped it for me was just blown away by Lucy's performance. He thought she was amazing. He kept saying that he couldn't get over how COLD D'Anna was. And when he'd say "COLD", he'd shiver. Grin. (And it being 23 below outside the restaurant window had NOTHING to do with his shivers.) He mentioned (yes, a number of times also), how MENACING she was. And he also said, "I didn't know she could play someone that evil!" That made me laugh out loud thinking of Evil Xena and her horrendous path of destruction through people's lives. And then he'd shake his head and say again,. "COLD. That woman was COLD!" It was GREAT!

And he was right.

Lucy was really good but she was absolutely astounding in the last 10 minutes or so.

When Lucy played Evil Xena, there was a specific goal or motive behind her horrendous actions. Usually had to do with greed, sometimes power which for her had to do with greed anyway. D'Anna just seems pure psycho. A psycho just for the hell of it. A psycho with no grounding. A psycho caught up in religious fervor. (Now *I'm* shivering.)

What makes her so scary is her joy in destruction. Her lack of tolerance for nuance. Her total black and white view of the world and its inhabitants. She still has the mind of a machine. She's a metal fundamentalist who hates the "other" and wants to destroy them.

Lucy's D'Anna is quicksilver. Her expressions flash across her face, fully rampant and unfiltered. There is never any doubt about when she's delighted, when she's angry, when she's challenged, when she's GOTCHA! She's like a child who hasn't matured enough to control their emotions or their responses. She has the absolute surety of a self contained and totally self-absorbed four year old.

And we've seen (well, I'VE seen) Lucy do this before-use those totally open absolutely unmodified expressions of childhood in very serious moments. Damn, she is soooo good! Her instincts as an actor are as spot on as the tight beam of a laser.

I wonder how she liked working with new directors, writers and producers in an ongoing series with her actually getting to work on character development. She joked at the con in Burbank this year about having to remember that D'Anna was a guest role-she wasn't the star of the series. And so she had to keep reminding herself to not keep making suggestions like, "Hey-about D'Anna does this!" She joked that it could trigger off the series regulars asking her questions like, "You played in what in the 90's?" to put her back in her place. Laugh!

When I first watched this one, my initial response was that I had liked "Final Cut" more. But mostly just because Lucy had more scenes in that one. However, after watching "Download" about seven times or so and watching Lucy's performance especially in the last 10 minues with much rewinding and pauses of the VCR, I think I like this one better now. And heck, it's most likely due to D'Anna being shown as such a psycho. There's a reason actors cherish the chance to play evil. And boy, does Lucy play evil well.

I hope that we get to see D'Anna reborn. (And no, unlike many of you not JUST to see Lucy thrashing around in a tub mostly naked.) I want to see her act the pain and horror of rebirth-and the horrible headache she will have from Six having bounced a boulder off her head. She is going to be SO furious! The question is, how powerful will she be? I can just imagine D'Anna waking, roaring up out of the tub and choking Six in fury. Can't you? And yeah, of course she'd be naked when she did that. Ahem.

There were very few humans in this ep. And THEY spend most of their time trying to decide what to do with this inconvenient baby. Of course they couldn't kill her. Though I suspect, like Hope, they may wind up wishing they had.

I had hoped to see more of Dualla. I really enjoyed that character. And that actor did an exceptional job to me. And also, I was looking forward to seeing Starbuck, Cat and young Adama again. I really enjoyed watching D'Anna's interactions with all of them. Hopefully we'll see her with them in the upcoming eps.

I like the way they use the camera in this series. They keep it moving, even when the characters are still. Laterally and in and out. This gives the viewer an edgy, kind of unbalanced feeling. Things are subliminally moving, nothing is stable and settled.

"Death becomes a learning experience." Not just empty words. These reborn cylons are "different"-they have a conscience. They have an awareness beyond a machine's. Having a body gives them a bit of a soul. Specifically, experiencing love, either received or given, seems to be a defining and apparently transcendent experience for them, one that makes them different than the other cylons. I wonder how often they've been downloaded.

The newly reborn hybrids are like crabs who have just shed their shells so they can grow bigger. Crabs are very vulnerable to predators at that time. The hybrids are also vulnerable-but they are emotionally vulnerable. And showing emotion on this planet can be very dangerous. As we saw when the new Six worried over Gaius and D'Anna immediately pounced on her for it.

I really enjoyed how different Six and Gaius were in this ep. Caprica Gaius shows the strength of Six's conscience, her guilt, her anger over what she did/had to do and her acknowledgement of her personal responsibility for having done it. And the ship's Six shows (boy, say THAT three times fast) Gaius' shabby character in the aftermath of what he's done. I have no idea what he was like before he betrayed his world. But after, he's pretty despicable. In "Final Cut", we see how pompous he is, how "wronged" he feels by the attitudes of the others to him. How he, unlike Caprica Six tends to never think about what he did. He certainly never seems to dwell on his own responsibility. In "Download" he of course jumps in to defend the baby, to stand up against infanticide. (LOVED the prez's line, "I don't make suggestions Mr. Baltar, if I want to toss a baby out an airlock, I'd say so.") She's soooo direct. What a gal!

Of course it could be true that Gaius is defending that baby only because he thinks she is his and Six's. And perhaps he suspects that Six will not be too pleased with him if they lose her. And boy, was he ever right.

I found it very interesting that in the middle of the show they urged viewers to get on AOL and join in the commentary. So they're getting immediate feedback on their ep. Fascinating. I wonder if they read what comes in or if they try to ignore it and write from their own hearts. I'm sure the suits at the network have someone reading the posts


Okay, now questions for those Xena buddies of ours who are hybrids of their own-them as are both XWP and BSG fans.


Who made D'Anna boss? Why does she get a ring side seat at the rebirths? Why do they fear her so much? (Just 'cause she's a psycho?) How did she become so powerful? We didn't see that happen-there was no other Lucy ep that developed this persona of hers and her status. I'm sure I would have been aware of it. Grin. And heck, if D'Anna had been mentioned in any of the other eps, I'm also certain that some of our hybrid fans would have informed us. So I'm betting nobody's got the answers to this. Yet.

Do humans have to be dead to be unloaded? If so, then D'Anna's dead.

Was Six a clyon when Baltar fell in love with her?

I found the probable answer to one of my questions when they showed some woman shooting Sharon, which was "Was human Sharon pregnant when she was killed? (I'm assuming that her being shot in the belly precludes this.) Were Sharon and her honey lovers before she was a cylon? Or did he fall in love with the cylon and then impregnate her? Did he realize she was a cylon hybrid then? If so, did the other people on the ship also know? Or did everybody find out later, when it was too late to do anything about the baby.

The cylons have a god. The humans don't have one?

Have these particular revolutionaries been seen in other eps? I'm betting there was an ep where Starbuck was on Caprica and that guy was in it. Or will they just do that one later as fill in? Now there's something to be said for that-think of what a set-up it would be if we had had no idea that Starbuck had found someone who "meant something to her" until we saw Sharon holding her ID and saying exactly that. That'd be a nice shock. (Of course, some fans would probably bitch about it in the way fans do. Complaining that "It came out of the blue". Personally, I see all storytelling as coming out of the blue. Heck, I see all Life as coming out of the blue. You just never know what's gonna happen next. And me, I like that. Art imitates life indeed.)

So it's going to be Sharon and Six against D'Anna. I wonder which #6 she is. Do we know how many of each there are? Is this the first other Six we've seen? How many hybrids of each particular human have so far had stories about them? Do we know when/why they were born? Or reborn? (Or since they're machines, should we say "Reconditioned?")

Gauis says in a flashback, "Sharon is going to bear our child." Is that baby theirs? Or is it Sharon's and her honey's? If it is Six's and Gaius', do Sharon and her boyfriend know that? Or is this just a screw that Six uses to twist Gaius' brain?

Do each of the hybrids gain every other hybrid's memories? Or are they "reset" only to their own history.


OH-I think I'll go read the posts I've saved in my BG spoiler folder. It's possible some of these answers will be in there.

Whew. What a great show. And what a great performance from Lucy.

That's it!
 

 

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