BSG: And There Shall Be No More Happiness

The Ties That Bind, the third episode of the season, pretty much killed all happiness and good will fostered by the previous showing. Since it's the beginning of the season, I can only guess that it's downhill from here. So, way to go, Battlestar Galatica.

Adama and Roslin made up the same way that they always do: by pretending that nothing ever happened. I swear, there are no apologies needed in the fleet; Lee expounded a little on this theory in Baltar's trial, but pretty much forgiveness is floating around in the air. There's probably a forgiveness ship in tow, processing sins and churning out saints. So, Adama and Roslin are back to buddy buddy old flames, though I'm guessing Adama's son will cause a little rough water. Real sons always have issues with step mothers.

Lee has finally made his last transition from pilot to politician, with was hailed with one of those, I don't know what I'm doing moments, a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington move of standing up in court and saying something that gets shoved right back. Lee here, however, is a little manipulated by Tom Zerek, the current vice president, ex subversive, and former Captain Apollo in the 1970s. Apparently, Roslin's turning the fleet into a facist state, with a Madonna at the lead. Doesn't fly with Lee, who lets freedom ring even with scumbags like Baltar. So he calls her out: with Zerek's help (which is undoubtedly fueled by selfish motivation), Lee reveals Roslin's preliminary plans for a tribunal answerable only to her, with powers to hold and try anyone. Just like the Cylons on New Caprica.

Needless to say, there is little love being lost between Lee and Roslin, at the moment.

Little love lost between the Cylons, too. (Where are these people losing love? Can they find it? Do they need help?) An all out civil war has erupted following the self aware status of the Centurions and the move to unbox D'Anna and find the Final Five. Brother Cavil, who is carrying on a May-December fling with Boomer, ugh...ugh. Oh man. Let me recover.

Brother Cavil pretty much broke bread all over the Six and her crew, in such a way that bread need not be broken no longer: he destroyed the Six controlled ships in an area where downloading, and thus resurrecting, is impossible. How will the wronged party return? Well, they'll find a way. Cavil's too creepy to win. Also, Cavil might in fact be the creator of the Cylon skin jobs. He seems so intent on keeping rank and law that he must have some sort of stake in this beyond what the other models see. But that's wild supposition.

Kara's sewage ship, which somehow hand picked the biggest brains on Galatica, is lost. Actually, it's dirty, and it's lost. The disorder might be the first problem. No one actually thought to clean up the sewage ship before heading out, or even in the down time while traveling. Sewage helmets, and I'm only assuming they are thus, cover the tables where these people eat. That rules out any form of a three second rule. Another explanation might be that there was a raging costume party the night before.

It has been three weeks since they launched, and everyone hates Kara except Sam, who has nothing but puppy love, and Helo, who is incapable of ill will. Kara sits in her private quarters on the space version of the ship from Heart of Darkness, painting pictures and changing her mind. She also likes to mess with Sam's heartstrings, but, let's be honest, he doesn't stand a chance. She's slipping, she tells him, as if her body is an alien form. Yes, she has a one way ticket to a climatic death come end season.

But the kicker to the show was Cally, Cheif, and Tori. Cliff notes: Cally commits suicide, Cheif becomes depressed, and Tori is a bad guy. But I have to get something off of my chest. Cally has always been the one character I hated. She has a fat face and a bad delievery. The producers were wise to keep her in the background, and I even began to like her innocent flirting and adrupt marriage with the Cheif. However, whenever she said anything or got angry or was shown at all as the center of a shot, I hated her. I so glad she's gone. Next, Tori has always been teh one character I strongly disliked. She always looks as if she's been drugged and she is not, I repeat not a looker. I thought I was to get a two-fer in that airlock, but no.

The question is, Tori? No doubt her motivation comes from Baltar, who she might have love at first sight with. His absence from this episode is a strong indicator that he instructed her to do so, which means he probably knows everything Tori does. He has his theories about Hera, the Cylon-human hybrid. Finding out that the Cheif was a Cylon, meant that his baby was also a hybrid, and fundamental to the future. Thus, Tori was sent to comandeer the child and knock off an annoying character.

This begins what would seem to be one big spiral for the Cheif. I loved the flashbacks, and the reminders of the happiness of the seasons past, and how young and thin he looked back then, but really, that's the happiest we'll see him till this show ends. He's in a corner, and dangerous in the same degree of Tori (who, still at Roslin's side, could be sowing much more damage than just one kill).

IN OTHER NEWS, all familiar faces not needed were exported to a sewage ship, Kara married Sam because he was pathetic, Sam got a very pathetic tattoo, I like Sam and Sam's tattoo, am I pathetic?

Like Cheif, I suspect that, given the relationships that have been destroyed (all save Helo, that mirror of constants), right about now is the time that characters are going through that unhappy stage that has to come before the happy stage in fiction. So, no more happiness until the end. I'm reminded of the point in The Muppet's Christmas Carol, where, when the action gets a little scary, narrators Gonzo and Rizzo peace out, telling the audience, "we'll see you in the lobby."

LOST: Now With References To The Muppets

Did anyone else notice how much Frank Lapidis, helicopter pilot, looks like Sam the Eagle? Especially, when he talks about the universally feared and respected anger of the Captain? All I could think of, watching him, was the speech First Mate Samuel Arrow, played by Sam the Eagle, delivered to the cabin boys in Muppet Treasure Island, concerning Captain Smollett, also known as Kermit the Frog:

The man is a raging volcano, with inner demons the likes of mere mortals cannot fathom.

The name of the freighter's captain, Captain Gault, even recalls Smollett a little (also, John Galt, who built a isolated paradise, away from the corrupt world, of various geniuses, in Atlas Shrugged. But don't read it). It is from the Captain that we learn that is indeed Ben who launched the cover up, planting a fake plane and three hundred plus bodies at the bottom of the ocean. Something like that must have cost more than War of the Worlds. Maybe money does in fact grow on trees on this particular island.

What's up with Regina? I say, the sickness that infected Rousseau's people. If you will remember, all of Rousseau's French friends went crazy after a few months on the island. At first, I thought this was Existentialism, but after seeing Regina jump off a boat, covered in chains like the ghost of Jacob and Robert Marley (they're brothers in the Muppet version), I think that maybe the French got a little cabin fever, too.

For further parallels between LOST and the Muppets, see the Treasure Island song, Cabin Fever.

I want to come forward immediately and say I do not appreciate being trifled with. The mix of flashbacks and flashforwards, with no apparent reason but to mislead the viewer, feels a little underhanded. I admit, I was sore afterwards, and not because I fell down or anything. However, Taylor the Architect, with whom I watched the episode, said he saw the ending coming (which I didn't), because he was anticipating being screwed with. Let's face it: everyone is expecting LOST to trick us more and more. This is what happened to M. Night Shyamalan; people came to his movies expecting to get a twist ending, and so in thinking about it, they eventually realized the ending before it came, and walked out of the theater hating the movie. With this episode, I feel like the producers and declaring war on the audience, in the way that Englishmen used to declare war: with the idea that war is much more diverting than peace. They're saying, we dare you to guess at where we're going next. And I love it.

Obviously, in a writer's room meeting, some random hand stood up and said, "Jin is becoming way too good of a person. He's almost fully worked through all his emotional problems, and his relationship with Sun is becoming dangerously healthy. So, he has to go." Jin is one of the best characters on the show, the man who always does the right thing - someone so functional cannot last long on a show known for its complex and conflicted characters. So, he's getting offed. When? In the next three weeks, showtime. Juliet said that Sun had to get off the island in three weeks. Jin, along with Claire, can be assumed to be those two who, according to the official story, survived the crash but not long enough to be rescued. Might the captain's inner demons, which the likes of mere mortals cannot fathom, get him?

And, yes, Claire will die. Charlie sacrificed himself because of a vision that involved her getting onto a chopper - she does not stay on the island. And for a mother to give up her child, some enormous force would have to play a part, like, say, death. My guess is it is Claire's death that sends Sayid over the edge, to work with Ben.

Does it make me a bad person that I felt a bit of joy in the last flashback scene? Between Hurley flying across the largest ocean in the world to be a substitute father figure, if only temporarily, and Sun weeping over Jin's grave, it gave me a bit of hope that yes, the people on the island are capable of love, and not just the type of love that involves a triangle.

Oh yeah, and Michael is the man on the boat. But that was kind of obvious.

IN OTHER NEWS, no one will be nice to Dan (give him a break, islanders), Bernard proves he has a purpose by acting as the token old man wisdom, Juliet is a cold hearted broad, and Jin's flashback music flourishes makes it more material for a children's comedy than a prime time drama about time travel.

So, does this mean the Oceanic Six are set? Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sun, Hurley, and Aaron? As for me, I'm not done fighting for Locke. I say Aaron doesn't count. I mean, who among that grouping of people wouldn't have anyone come to their funeral? Someone needs to be universally hated to get that treatment, and so I'm not done pushing Locke.

As I understand it, next week's episode will be the last until late April, so put on a hat and then hold onto said hat tightly, because, to be sure, it will attempt to trip you up, and will inevitably sucker punch you with information like, rapper Mannie Fresh is actually the smoke monster.