Battlestar Galactica, Final 1: Dee, Ellen, and Starbuck
Well, the first of the final Battlestar Galactica episodes, like the Final Five, was wrapped in enigma and jolting surprise...
Dee finds a child's jacks toy on "Earth" - revealed last year as a radioactive ruin of a planet, and revealed in this episode as populated entirely, at least insofar as the bones that were found, by Cylons. Their destruction occurred some 2000 years ago... Dee is less unhappy than just about everyone else about this. Back on the Galactica, she's looking good, Lee kisses her ... and she blows her brains out. Why?
Tyrol discovers that he has memories of Earth, and the holocaust - which makes sense, given that he's a Cylon, and there may have been some means of resurrection nearby. Did Dee kill herself because she realized she was Cylon, because of some memory of the jacks?
Perhaps.
And then there's Ellen. Tigh, back on ruined Earth, remembers at the end of the episode that he and Ellen died there, 2000 years ago, and Ellen told him not to worry, they would resurrect and be together again. So, Ellen is/was the final Cylon?
Perhaps.
But what an exquisite additional maybe final twist to the Tigh and Ellen story. He loves her but kills her because he think she's a human who helped the Cylons (on his behalf). Then he finds out that he's a Cylon, himself. And now he find that Ellen's a Cylon, too. (Did she resurrect on the ship? If so, where is she now?) Some eons, you just can't win...
Meanwhile, Kara is in some ways the most interesting of all. She finds her ship and corpse on Earth - not from 2000 years ago, but from when she went to Earth, some two years ago, in television series time. So ... she was somehow replicated, resurrected, or whatever it took to get her living and back in a craft again and reunited with the BSG crew? And why did she tell everyone it would all be ok, when she first got back?
One thing's for sure: the riddle of Battlestar Galactica is a lot more complex than it seemed, which was complex indeed.
But we may have an answer for the Dylan song. Anders remembers playing it some 2000 years ago. So ... the Cylons originally arrived "here" some time after right now (in our real time), and Dylan was in the air (as he is now), and the Cylons picked up his music?
Perhaps...
See also Battlestar Galactica 4:10 Earth and links to reviews other BSG episodes there...
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
bill benzon
Poppi Iceland
PattyJane
N. Jordan
Dr. Vanessa Neumann
CPH/NYC
Salon.com
Comments
You're right that Dee is puzzling. I think she was just so deeply depressed that their last hope was gone that she wanted to end joyful, not depressed.
Ellen is clearly the Cylon from Tigh's memory. But Starbuck's crashed viper, what the hell?
But then it hit me like a ton of bricks a few hours after I watched it. Starbuck IS the final Cylon. So is Ellen. Starbuck IS Ellen!
They are both blonde. Ellen is certainly a Cylon. Starbuck's obviously not human with her dead body and all. It's the ONLY explanation.
I think the other commenters are off about Starbuck. Starbuck is not a cylon, a point frequently stressed by the show's creators. It'd be too easy to explain her issues away by saying she's a cylon. I suspect it's some sort of cloning thing, tied in with her time spent on the fertility farms back on Caprica. I also suspect that the 13th tribe (the cylons) are not gone.
I wondered briefly if Ellen might not just be an aged version of the Sixes. Seems more likely given the hallucinations.
It was such a great episode...I'm trying not to think about when it won't be on anymore, but I guess all great things must end...
Thanks for posting this--aside from the big Salon article yesterday, I haven't seen anything this morning yet!
I thought that moment was quite clear actually, and was extremely sad, moving, and powerful.
As for the rest of the show, I was incredibly impressed. I loved every part of it. Only 9 episodes left!
Kara's predicament is easier. The dead Kara she found is her future self. That is her end, her destiny. But not all ends are created equal. The Hybrid says, Kara Thrace will lead them to their End. What end does the hybrid refer to? The common reading is that she is leading humanity to their *death*, but there is another meaning to "end". Kara Thrace is leading humanity to their *purpose*, which is not about following an ancient script and a path taken once before (all this has happened before and will happen again) but charting a new course, not the road less traveled but the road not traveled before.
i'm so sad. only 9 episodes to go. does anyone know anything about the new caprica series? i need to have hope.
Dee's suicide felt rushed to me. In that sense, I agree with Heather Havrilesky. The writers tried to jam too much into one episode.
So who nuked the cylons on earth?
All of the above seems to be rather out of character, no matter how disappointed in the outcome of their arrival at Earth.
Plus - Lee found the jacks that Dee picked up from the planet in her personal effects after her suicide. That seemed to be a focal point. Why? hmm...
As for Starbuck being Ellen - no way in my mind! Ellen is completely lacking the "tomboyish" aspects of Starbuck's character. She is more a constantly flirting/fracking socialite than a warrior.
Tigh thinks it's Ellen because he saw her in a 2000-year-old memory. But how reliable is that? Cylons "project", so sometimes they see things they want to see instead of things that are real. Tigh once confused Caprica Six with Ellen in the detention cell. Was the Cylon in Tigh's memory really Ellen? Can we trust Tigh's perception? I think I'll wait for further confirmation.
D'Anna Biers knows the identity of the fifth (she saw the faces of the Final Five at the Temple of the Five), but she hasn't told anyone who it is. But I think she has given us solid grounds for ruling out a lot of possibilities. When she demanded the release of the four Cylons who were in the fleet, I think we can safely assume that she didn't ask for the release of FIVE of them because the fifth one was not in the fleet at that time. That rules out Starbuck and Dee, who were aboard the Galactica, and it supports the idea that Ellen is the fifth.
Some people have suggested that since dozens of humans were aboard the rebel Base Star when D'Anna demanded the release of the four Cylons who were in the fleet, it's possible that one of the humans who was on the Base Star is the fifth. Roslin, Helo, or perhaps a minor character we've never heard of? Why do all five Cylons have to be well known, anyway? Maybe there's another surprise in store for us.
The show has promised to give us the answer, so I won't dwell on such speculation. In hindsight, it only makes us look kind of dumb.
What I'd really like to know is, how did Starbuck's Viper crash on Earth? It blew up over a planet that was thousands of lightyears away. And then it landed on Earth (in pieces)? I'm reluctant to speculate. I suppose we will eventually learn the answer, perhaps when we learn how another copy of Starbuck in a brand new Viper returned to the fleet.
A lot of people are saying that Battlestar Galactica is the best TV show in the history of the universe. Personally, I'm withholding judgment until I see how all of the mysteries are resolved. For example, what kind of organism is Starbuck? Whatever she is, Leoben is now afraid of her. She is also afraid of herself. She's neither a Cylon nor a human. That has to be a lot more worrying than wondering whether she's "just" a Cylon.
There are so many more questions. How can the hybrids predict the future? How can humans have prophetic visions? What is responsible for the presence of the Six (and the other Baltar) in Baltar's mind? What will happen to Hera and Nicky? Why was Hera called "the shape of things to come"? Who or what is orchestrating all of these events? For example, who "switched on" the Final Five? Who sent Starbuck back from Earth (if that is actually what happened)? How did Tigh, Tory, Tyrol, and Anders all manage to survive against all odds? How did they happen to be in the right place at the right time? If the ancient gods of Kobol were real beings, what were they? Do they still exist? Does the "one true god" exist?
If the show ends up giving us things like the Q and metachlorines, I will be very disappointed. I'm hoping there will be better answers than that.