#who actually knows what lee lost when kara died

[curioussubjects]

#until they made Sam more than Kara running away I liked him#he was great as a guy who loved her more than she loved him#after the dance and eye of jupiter it didn't work for me anymore#but post-maelstrom I loved that Sam was the only one who understood Lee's loss and acknowledged it#look at Sam's face in the hallway#not only does he realize how much Lee loved Kara because he's there helping her husband after her death#but he realized WHY Kara loved him#and why that scared her so much#it's also funny to me how similar Trucco and Bamber's faces are#it was probably unintentional but having her go for a Lee-type instead of a Zak-type is v. telling (via @desperate-confidence)

166 notes

[aion-rsa]

Old: M. Night Shyamalan’s Twist Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/3kKtl2y

Contains spoilers for Old.

Old is the new chiller from director and screenwriter M. Night Shyamalan who is very well known for his twisty plots and rug pull endings. Fans who go to the cinema for that will not be disappointed.  

Inspired by the graphic novel Sandcastle, by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, Old sees a family on a dream holiday get taken to a secluded private beach which they discover is causing them to age very rapidly. But how? And why?

Well, that’s not revealed until the end of the movie. Here we break down what happens and what it all means.

Who Dies in Old?

In short: everyone except Trent and Maddox, the now grown children of the family we begin our journey with. But characters die in different ways and that’s significant. Old is thematically MASSIVE. It essentially attempts to sum up the entire human experience in one movie, indicating a variety of ways a life could go – with twists and turns of course.

Rufus Sewell’s Charles is a doctor with racist tendencies and his rapid dementia sees him become violent. He murders rapper Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre), tries to kill Guy (Gael García Bernal), and eventually is killed himself by Prisca (Vicky Krieps), who stabs him with a rusty implement giving him super-rapid blood poisoning. His mother has already died of what seems to be a heart condition at the start of the movie.

His wife Crystal’s (Abbey Lee) calcium deficiency causes the most horrific deterioration scene in the whole movie; her bones crunch and become contorted into hideous and unnatural shapes as they crack and then heal too quickly. It’s a medical condition, sure, but there’s an implicit judgement of Crystal in the background. The beautiful, much-younger wife of Charles is positioned as being overly fond of her looks and as she starts to age and her body lets her down, she hides in a cave in the darkness rather than be with other people. 

Crystal’s daughter Kara goes from being a little kid to a teenager, is pregnant, and immediately loses the baby (harrowing). Later she tries to climb her way to freedom but falls to her death.

This is a doomed family: a disjointed group who essentially all die horribly and alone, as opposed to the family we meet at the start. Mum Prisca is thinking of divorcing Dad Guy; she’s been having an affair, but both parents love their children fiercely and ultimately love each other too.

Only Prisca and Guy are given a ‘good death’ – they live out the minutes of their lives together. The couple reunite and solve their differences, row with each other and their children but eventually make peace with themselves. Though she has lost the hearing in one ear and his vision is severely impaired, they sit together on the beach at the end of their all too short lives and agree there is nowhere they would rather be than together.

Third couple Jarin (Ken Leung) and Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) have narratively significant deaths. Jarin attempts to rescue the group by swimming around the coast, but despite being a strong swimmer he doesn’t survive. This death emphasizes that the group has tried everything and can’t escape. Meanwhile Patricia dies of an epileptic episode. This becomes very significant later in the movie when we understand the drugs she’s been given have prevented an episode from happening for 16 years (more on this later).

What’s the deal with the rapper?

The first people at the island are a famous rapper (according to young Maddox) with the stage name Mid-Sized Sedan (real name Kevin) and the woman he is with. She has taken a swim (naked) and later washes up dead, sparking the first wave of conflict on the beach as racist Charles immediately accuses Kevin of murdering the woman. 

As a catalyst this works narratively and comes loosely from the graphic novel Sandcastle though in Sandcastle the man is an Algerian Jeweler rather than a Black rapper. 

Read more

Movies

How The Empty Man Became the Ring Video of Streaming

By Kirsten Howard

We do wonder though, why, when his companion swam out into the sea he wouldn’t have been a bit more bothered about that and wouldn’t have asked the others for help as soon as they arrived? Also her body doesn’t appear to be especially decomposed when she washes up (while she decomposes very rapidly once on the beach).

Any thoughts about what’s going on here? Let us know in the comments.

So what is actually going on with the beach?

Electromagnetic material surrounding the beach is causing cells to age incredibly quickly – at the rate of around a year every half an hour. The kids are still growing so their aging is more obvious than the adult characters. The adults don’t get grey hair, according to a throwaway line, because hair and cells are dead and so aren’t affected – the same reasoning why they don’t all suddenly have very long hair and fingernails.

Though the film has a strong existential and allegorical angle there is actually, in theory, a real world solution – as in, the answer is ‘science’ and not ‘magic.’ This is why there are no fish in the water on the beach, and why it’s significant that when Trent and Maddox emerge from the other side of the coral they suddenly see a school of fish. The explanation for why they can’t just leave the way they came is that reversing the rate of aging very quickly causes an enormous shock to the system (like resurfacing too fast from deep sea diving), which causes them to black out before they can get anywhere.

So why on earth has the holiday resort actively decided to send people – and these people specifically – to suffer a horrific fate on the beach?

Turns out the resort is really an incredibly elaborate front for a pharmaceutical company…

What does the pharmaceutical company want and why?

This pharmaceutical agency discovers the beach and sees the potential for whole-of-life medical trials to be carried out in just over a day. In theory these trials mean vital medicines can be tested incredibly rapidly for efficacy and also for side effects. Okay, not terribly reliably – medical trials don’t tend to involve observing patients from a distance with no actual lab tests and checks, and the beach is hardly a real-life adjacent or controlled environment. But this is the logic.

Candidates are selected who are having treatment for various specific conditions already. Prisca has a tumor which she thinks is benign, and it’s through her that her family is selected. Others on the beach with them also turn out to have conditions. 

The facility has arranged all of the families’ travel and accommodation and taken their passports away from them – there (supposedly) is no evidence that they even left home, which is how the pharma is able to carry out its plans without being caught.

The system is flawed (it’s obviously massively morally flawed and also doesn’t hold up to medical scrutiny either since it’s hardly a meaningful test when it’s on individuals whose bodies don’t behave at all like regular people, but we digress…). One of the employees points out how unsound it is to put test subjects with neurological disorders in with those with conditions that do not affect the mind. Charles killing Mid-Sized Sedan and stabbing others rather interferes with the results.

On arrival guests are given specially mixed cocktails supposedly based on their preferences and dietary requirements – these cocktails are drugged with whichever experimental new treatment the lab wants to test. 

Another possible hitch: surely treatments aren’t usually one dose and then you’re done for your entire lifetime? But different rules apply here, hence the children needing to eat lots of food to account for their changes in body mass but the grown ups who stay at roughly the same weight don’t have the same issue. 

When the twist is finally revealed, we learn that the events we have been watching are part of trial number 43, and the team are celebrating a victory – the epilepsy drug given to Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is a success and stopped her from having a seizure for 16 years. (Just as well Charles didn’t murder her first.)

How do Trent and Maddox finally escape?

For a time it actually looks like they haven’t escaped. M. Night Shyamalan’s nefarious surveiller who has been watching the island the whole time is convinced the two have drowned.

Read more

Movies

Jordan Peele Calls ‘Nope’ on His Next Horror Movie

By David Crow

Thank goodness, though, that they have not. While we know countless families before them have died on the island, it still would have been almost too unpleasant not to spare these two. For a start we’ve been with them the whole movie, they’re our focal characters and all of the different actors who play the two as they grow keep us hooked. But these are all children – 11 and six at the start, who’s lives really are being stolen from them. They are not sick. They are not instrumental in progressing medical research. No fancy drugged cocktails for the kids, they are literally collateral damage – loose ends to be tied up. Kara has plummeted to her death but the now grown up Maddox and Trent (Amon Elliot and Embeth Davidtz) are the last hope.

And it turns out to be another child that is their salvation. Trent remembers that he never translated the note that his young pal Idlib (Kailen Jude) gave him in their special code. With frankly nothing more pressing to do than await his death, adult Trent decides to take a look. The amazing Idlib has given him a clue about his uncle not liking the coral. Turns out the tunnel of coral provides the sort of casing it requires for them to be able to get away from the force of the beach without immediately blacking out.

What about the diary?

The diary left by a previous islander is key to the ending of the movie, avoiding having to waste the audience’s time with police incredulity. 

Back at the resort having escaped the beach, the now grown Trent spots a man he’d met when he was six and playing the (narratively handy) game ‘what’s your name, and what is your occupation?’ This guy, he remembers, is a cop.

The diary documents all the things learned by another victim of the beach and the families that were there during that trial. It documents the names of everyone on the beach, as well as the things this person – who, like Trent and Maddox, was a child when they arrived – learned during their last days. The cop is able to quickly cross reference and find that everyone on the list is a missing person, missing at the same time.

Maddox and Trent get their happy ending (kind of) – they are able to expose the dodgy pharma company, prevent any further victims, and are airlifted away after saying a sad and grateful farewell to Idlib, who is very much still a child. 

We do need this ending. The film as a whole is incredibly bleak, and giving these two a chance to save the day is a tonic. Old is careful not to present this ending as too cheerful though. In the flight away from the resort Trent talks about contacting his aunt and when asked about his reaction he replies:

“How would you feel if a 50-year-old man called and said he was your six-year-old nephew?”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

They are free and they are alive, but what will happen to Trent and Maddox now is a different story.

Old is out now in cinemas.

The post Old: M. Night Shyamalan’s Twist Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3kPlFMr

[raisedbyfandomwolves]

Undercover maid

This... got away from me like the rest but in my defence, it’s not exactly an easy prompt to work with...

It was supposed to have been a relatively simple operation.

At their core, the Gands were no different from all the other filthy rich families that had gained their obscene amounts of wealth through shady deals and other questionable means. The FBI had taken their kind down before a hundred times and there would be a hundred more others just like them long after they had been shipped off to jail where they belonged.

When Kara had been chosen to go undercover as a maid in their household, she had treated it like any other assignment of this type she had undertaken before. Routines, business schedules, even favourite restaurants... She had memorised every bit of information the FBI had on each Gand on the off chance that it would come in handy in the unlikeliest of situations.

Naturally, that had also meant learning everything she could about Michael Gand, the only son of Lars and Rhea Gand.

If 'Frat Boy of the Universe' was an award that actually existed, she was sure that he would win it hands down... and keep winning it year after year without fail at least until he died of alcohol poisoning, a drug overdose or some other health issue brought on by his degenerate lifestyle. In fact, his only redeeming qualities seemed to be that he was sensible enough not to drive while drunk and his apparent lack of involvement in his parents' illegal activities.

“He's also hot as hell,” her colleague Eve had added with an impish smirk while waving one of his surveillance photos in Kara's face. “Don't forget the most important part.”

How that was in any way relevant had escaped Kara but she was used to Eve making such inappropriate remarks and had just rolled her eyes at that. Whether Michael looked like a modern day Adonis or the Hunchback of Notre Dame had no bearing on her assignment and once she had made her way into the Gand household, she was just going to avoid him whenever possible. Considering his reputation as an unapologetic womaniser, he would probably try to seduce her – not that she would ever fall for his sleazy charm, of course – and quite possibly cause her nothing but trouble until the very end.

Less than a week after she had started her undercover assignment, that prejudiced view of him had not just been challenged but rather nearly obliterated in its entirety.

She had no idea how the FBI had missed the domestic abuse during their initial surveillance but it was impossible for her not to notice when it was happening right in front of her on an almost daily basis.

When Lars and Rhea had been nothing more than profiles and pictures to her, Kara had already despised them on principle. Now that she had seen how they treated their own son, however, she wanted to be the one to personally shove them into their jail cells.

Rhea was undeniably the crueller of the two with her nearly constant barrage of disparaging remarks that cut deeper than any blade could achieve. If anything, the occasional slaps that reverberated throughout the Gand mansion were nothing compared to the verbal abuse she heaped on Michael at every opportunity. Sometimes, it seemed as if she treated him worse than she did any of her servants... or even all of them combined.

Suddenly, all the alcohol, drugs and one night stands made an unsettling amount of sense.

It wasn't long before Kara had gone from wanting nothing to do with Michael Gand to wishing for his sake that he had been born into any other family – born to parents who actually loved him and didn't seem to treat hurting him as their favourite hobby.

But the tipping point – the change of heart she had never seen coming – had been one night when he had stumbled in dead drunk and she had been the only one still awake at that late hour.

He had mumbled about everything from whether he had left his jacket at the bar – he was wearing it – to how insanely blue her eyes were – like comets, he had slurred – as she had all but dragged him up to his room to sleep it off. His clumsy compliment had shocked her not because she hadn't expected it – he was a notorious flirt, after all – but rather because... because... she hadn't minded it.

Of course, that potentially world-altering realisation had taken a back seat when he had proceeded to follow up that compliment with a very shocking and rather lucid confession: He knew about his parents' illegal dealings – not everything but enough to actually put them away for a substantially long time – and he wished he had the courage to stand up to them about it instead of constantly running away and trying to pretend everything was fine.

Then he had finally fallen asleep, leaving her with a dilemma that kept growing until it had presented her with a very ill-advised solution.

When he had sought her out the next morning while she was cleaning one of the mansion's many rooms to apologise for his behaviour, she had taken the biggest gamble of her life and revealed her true identity. She had confessed that her name was not Linda Lee but rather Kara Danvers and she was an FBI agent trying to uncover evidence that would bring his parents to justice. While he had been stunned silent, she had taken the opportunity to go through with her highly unorthodox and risky proposal: try and convince him to testify against his parents.

“I know what I'm asking of you is something unthinkable,” she had said, ��but you told me yourself last night: You know what they're doing is wrong and you want to stop them. I can help you do that. I know you don't believe it, Michael, but there's a good man somewhere deep down inside you – a good man who deserves a second chance instead of suffering the same fate as his parents when the law finally catches up to them. All you have to do is trust me and work with me.”

He had stared blankly at her for an inordinate amount of time before simply turning on his heels without saying another word. Panic had set in quickly after that – Had she miscalculated? Was he going to warn his parents? What were the chances that the operation had just been sabotaged beyond salvation by her own hand and she was going to end up a rotting corpse in the river? – but it was too late; all she had been able to do was pray that she had been right about him even as she had begun wondering if she needed to tender her resignation when she could finally go back to the office.

Several nerve-wracking days where he had avoided her like the plague had passed before he sought her out again in the laundry room while his parents were out of town. “Hey,” he greeted her softly, startling her so much she let out a short shriek as she spun around to face him. “Sorry, I... I didn't mean to scare you.”

“N-No, it's fine. I was just... a little tense.” She took in the way he looked – tired, worn out and a far cry from the playboy persona he usually put on to mask his pain – and her still racing heart ached for him. There was a small voice at the back of her head telling her that she was crossing a line she shouldn't – had possibly already crossed it a long time ago, even – but she found she was past caring about that. “You didn't tell your parents about me.”

His haggard expression twisted into one of bewildered hurt. “They would've killed you. I couldn't...” He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. “I'd never be able to live with myself.”

“I know,” she rushed to reassure him with an outstretched hand, her feet already taking her a few steps closer to him before she was even aware of it. “I'm sorry I implied you would. You... I meant what I said about you being a good man, Michael, and a good man wouldn't do something like that.”

He let out a noise that vaguely resembled a laugh. “You believing that makes one of us.” Then his distorted mirth disappeared as quickly as it had manifested and his expression became pained again. “They're my parents.”

It was a loaded statement filled with more emotions than those three words had any right to possess. “I understand,” she said gently, aware that her response was worth so little it was almost a mockery even though there really was nothing else she could offer.

The flicker of gratitude in his blue-grey eyes when he met her gaze again showed he appreciated the gesture anyway, much to her quiet relief. “So... What happens now?”

“I'll have to contact my superiors and then... we'll see.” Taking another ill-advised gamble albeit of a different kind, she closed the distance between them and grasped his hand. “But no matter what, I promise I'll be with you every step of the way, okay? We're going to get through this. Together.”

“...Okay.” He looked so much like a lost puppy as he slowly turned the hand she was holding around so that they were palm to palm that she was seized with the urge to hug him as tightly as she could and tell him that she would never let him be hurt again. “Then... I'm in your hands, Kara.”

[missluthorwillseeyounow]

In light of that episode, I've decided to be my usual petty self and throw canon in the dumpster where it belongs, and counter it with Supercorp AUs. I'll be posting some as my schedule allows, and if anyone is interested in any of these, let me know:

"May You Always Be Satisfied" or the AU based on the song Satisfied from Hamilton. Opens with Lena's bridesmaid toast at Kara's wedding to her brother (and no this is not Kara x Lex cos 🤢🤢 ew no). Involves Kara being the princess who fled Krypton as a child to grow up in Metropolis as Linda Lee Danvers. A LOT of pining and angst (with a happy ending ofc). Has some nice familial Clark and Lena scenes. This is a period piece, and holy shit did it get away from me.

"The Window is Open" or the AU based on that one How I Met Your Mother episode where Ted is a creep who obsesses over his "window" of opportunity to date the ultimate girl next door (even going as far as to ask her neighbor to call him as soon as she breaks up with her boyfriend). In this AU, Kara is the girl next door whose guy friends all keep vying to get in on her window, and Lena is her best friend who always avoids her after each breakup. Features Mon-El as the Ted in this scenario.

That freaking Frozen AU that just won't shut up. Seriously, this thing has a hold on me.

That AU where Lena is a historian with a grudge against historical conspiracy theorists, who films several documentaries with her research assistant Jess to debunk them. She has a huge following, and one of her followers sends her a link to an article about a cult dedicated to the Children of Rao who are conviced that aliens arrived on Earth in ancient times and are using their psychic powers to help those who need it. In particular, they talk about the Paragon of Hope, who goes into the dreams of the hopeless, those who are suffering, and gives them peace and hope. The Cult of Rao is on a mission to find the Paragon of Hope, in order to wake her up from her long sleep, so that she might return hope to a hopeless world. Which Lena thinks is a load of crap if she ever heard one.

My Saskia x Red Daughter AU that just WILL NOT let me go, in which Saskia, the "Lost Luthor" who everyone thought was dead, shows up to let Lena know that their dear brother has gotten ahold of the Kryptonian clone. Saskia is an "independent contractor" (nobody knows what she actually does, and they're too afraid to ask, but Nia's latest conspiracy theory that she's posed to the group is that she's a cross between a spy and an assassin) who helps the DEO deprogram Red Daughter from Lex's brainwashing, and takes her in to keep the DEO from getting their hands on her. Involves Red Daughter being simultaneously earnest and eager, as well as shy and sweet around her, and Saskia trying (and failing) to keep her badass tough exterior, except she's a soft bean when it comes to Red Daughter (Kasnia). Involves a lot of bed sharing, and Saskia helping Kasnia through panic attacks.

Changeling!Lena AU. The foundation for this one was not actually mine, but came from the amazing @the-queen-of-the-light brought up fae Lena. This one is more of a focus on Lena's backstory, especially with Lillian. Basically, Lillian and Lionel's daughter, Lena died when she was 7, and they never got over it. Until Lionel gets ahold of an old Celtic relic and his unspoken "wish" to have his daughter back is granted, and he opens the door to his daughter's old room, only to find a little stranger with her face and memories playing quietly with her old toys. I love this for the Lillian angst, because I get to play with Lillian as a the complex character that she is. Because she actually loved her daughter and she was bitter over her loss, so she rejects Lena because in her own words, she's not her daughter, just "the thing that replaced her". Also a period piece, and there will be some childhood friends Supercorp. Just know that this is teenager Lena in this AU:

And this is young Kara:

(Cos I've only gotten to their teenage years in this).

So anyway, yeah, this episode pissed me off, and I'm ready to go neck deep in Supercorp. Let me know if any of y'all want me to share any of these.

P.S. let's all remember that even though we're pissed about canon, there's no reason to take it out on the actors themselves. They're just trying to do their jobs, let's leave them be.

[somegurl8]

fishcop I hope you know you just opened the flood gates because I’m gonna ramble about this whole thing /pos

So, what is The Flowers Down Home about?

Set in modern day in a small town in Georgia called Fort Stur that’s had several missing people and strange attacks over the last couple of years, the campaign follows our three protagonists as they run into strange flower plant monsters and as they try to figure out what’s going on and how to stop it before they end up “missing” too.

The campaign’s heavily Blood in the Bayou inspired and has some inspiration from hanahaki disease, specifically the flower part and not the love part, and it’s only been running for about 2 months now but it’s been a ton of fun.

Now who are the lovely people featured in the art? From left to right:

Played by @red-heart-sunglasses is Lee Anderson (he/him), a 21 year old college student returning home for his father’s funeral while remnants of his past trauma in his ex boyfriend’s mysterious death and cover up come back up. Keeps having trauma solidarity with some of the NPCs and is dealing with the idea that whatever happened to his ex is happening again.

Played by @gentlemanslime is Ciara Ires (she/her), a 25 year old accountant also returning home but instead with the intentions of coming out to her parents as a lesbian transwoman (spoiler alert: it unfortunately went unwell but that was at the request of slime). Is definitely trying her best with everything going on but has a little guilt over some of the stuff she's unintentionally help put the next PC I'll talk about through (it's not really her fault though, just some bad dice rolls).

Played by Luninade_ over on Twitter is Leon Curtis (he/they), a 17 year old "menace" aka a student that's also a self-employed engineer who lives in town and has grown up with all of the strange going ons in town. Also nearly died session 1 and I'm 80% sure he has lost the most sanity points so far.

A few notable NPCs:

Ren (he/they), a victim of one of the plant monsters that the party managed to save. He's actually my PC for a FNAF based Monster of the Week campaign I'm in that I stuck in as a "throw away character" to simply help introduce the monsters but due to sunglasses wanting to romance them (their ship name is "flower boys" due to their shared flower related trauma) now he's a bigger NPC. Freddy Fazbear in fact killed his mother.

Div (any pronouns), a journalist looking into the missing people cases. Also another PC turned NPC, except I'm like 90% sure the fairytale text based roleplay they were for isn't ever going to happen so oh well. She's besties with Ren.

Alethea (she/her), a biologist with a Strangle MaCock type entrance as she saved the party from one of the plant monsters. Not any sort of reused character but actually one of the very first NPCs I came up with for the game. Recently learned that her on and off again "it's complicated" girlfriend Kara died and got turned into a plant monster so she's been having a rough time.

Harlyn (she/her), Ciara's roommate/best friend/long time crush turned recent girlfriend. She came with Ciara to act as moral support for when Ciara came out and iirc I think we gave those two the ship name "pretty in pink." I threaten her livelihood every now and then to mess with slime /lh

If anyone has any questions about the campaign feel free to ask I'm more than happy to talk about it!! This campaign has been an absolute blast to play and I couldn't ask for better players or friends for it :]

Really cool commission I got from xopapillas_art on Twitter for my Call of Cthulhu campaign The Flowers Down Home, featuring all of the amazing player characters

[blue-mint-winter]

BSG 4x19 Daybreak rewatch

I cried. This is the end of this epic journey, this is a goodbye to those amazing characters.

It’s really hard to talk about it in a calm and analyzing fashion, but I believe that the resolutions we got were fitting and satisfying.

What really struck me is that in the finale finally we reach a real unity between Cylons and humans. They now fight side by side as comrades and it’s not just the skinjobs, but Centurions too. Even Adama crosses the line he thought he’d never cross - he allows for Sam to be hooked up to systems in CIC, becoming a Hybrid for Galactica.

This episode does this really neat trick of showing us the life of certain characters before the fall. We see how certain events and decisions they made, seemingly random and insignificant, led their fate to Galactica and now.

The whole mission to save Hera - I like how it’s shown as this crazy, for volunteers only, last stand of Galactica, the last battle. But this irrational mission is the key, the visions and prophecies came to fruition there and Kara finally fulfilled her purpose and found the way to Earth.

I love the moment in which Kara puts in the coordinates she got from her father’s song and they jump. Incredible scene.

Hoshi becomes Admiral of the remaining Fleet. So he followed in his boyfriend’s footsteps in a way.

Hera is rescued thanks to Boomer. Boomer’s fate is just really bittersweet. We get a flashback of her when Adama gave her the second chance instead of throwing her out for doing a bad job as a pilot and how she said she owed him one. Returning Hera is Boomer paying that debt. She can become that person she once was, before all the betrayals - one of Adama’s kids. Boomer’s final choice is to side with humanity, with Galactica. But she still pays for all her sins with death by Athena’s hand.

I don’t really know how to feel about Athena killing Boomer. On one hand who else would be more suitable to do it, on the other hand maybe suicide would have been a better option? As a callback to S1 when Boomer was unable to kill herself because of her programming, if she overcame that now... However, Athena killing Boomer is the closest it can get to a suicide. They share those memories from before the attack on the Colonies. Athena is who Boomer could have been.

Gaius deciding to stay on Galactica in the last minute makes sense. I wonder why Head Six told him to go, to use his new political power and influence thanks to his followers in the Fleet. Maybe reverse psychology? Maybe she was testing him. Because he had to stay for everything to unfold in the right way.

I love Gaius and Caprica reconciling. It’s not hard to see that he chose to stay because she was staying. And for once Gaius didn’t listen to his self-preservation instincts, because something was much stronger - his love for Caprica Six.

Gaius’ flashbacks to how he met Caprica Six were wonderful. She became a witness to an argument between Gaius and his father who stabbed a nurse and I love just how it must have affected her. She thinks of Cylons as humanity’s children and then she saw this example of a father and son being so completely at odds, unable to understand each other, fighting.

Caprica Six finding a nice retirement house for Gaius’ father where he could be happy may have been part of her scheme to get access to defense mainframe, but I believe it was more than that. I think she would’ve been able to seduce it out of Gaius without that. Caprica through this good deed won Gaius’ heart, she saw and reached the man under the arrogant scientist. And how funny it was him who first used the “L” word. Gaius Baltar talking about love, than quickly backpedaling to cover up that he was actually open about his feelings for once.

Gaius’ role in the finale is what he does best - talking. This time his words reach CAVIL, so that he gives them Hera.

Turns out that Roslin’s opera house vision had one purpose only - so she’d hide Hera from Centurions in that one critical moment on Galactica. If she never had that vision, she’d never go out of sickbay to look for Hera and the child would’ve never gotten to Gaius and Six and CIC and there would be no ceasefire between Cavil faction and human-Cylon alliance.

Final Five scene. Oh wow. So Tigh offers Cavil resurrection tech for Hera and all Five have to combine their knowledge, but it also lets them know everything else about each other. And that’s when the hour of reckoning comes to Tory.

I have to say that on one hand I love that Tyrol had that Cally flashback, how she was on his side from the start. He loved her, maybe not like Boomer, but they built a life together, a marriage, she stayed by his side through some very tough times. Their relationship meant a lot to him, otherwise he’d never have grieved like he did. And Tyrol attacking Tory when he saw her memories of Cally’s murder is significant of that. All in all, after this season did Cally so dirty, I like that the last thing we see of her is a positive memory Tyrol had of her. And her death is avenged.

Ironic that Tory’s downfall was exactly as foreshadowed. She kept this big terrible secret and when it came out, it destroyed her. Gaius did warn her about it once. The secret of her affair with him destroyed Tory’s friendship with Roslin and her last real tie to humanity. But she didn’t learn anything from it, she never came clean about murdering Cally and so she paid the price.

This situation is also interesting when we look at Tyrol’s perspective. After Boomer’s last betrayal he lost all trust in Eights. “They’re just machines,” he says to Helo. Tyrol was once able to forgive Cally for shooting Boomer, he even married her, the killer of his first love. But what Cally did was out of love for him. She was fiercely devoted to him. Tyrol couldn’t forgive Tory for killing Cally, but what Tory did was pure calculated murder. She did it for her own selfish reasons. And even with Cally out of the way, Tyrol was not interested in a relationship with Tory which is something she must have hoped for. In the end he kills Tory in rage and then he swears off all women and lives alone in highlands on some northern island, away from people.

What all of this says about Tyrol is that in my theory he never had a real, deep love with Tory and he compensated by creating Number Eight. Boomer was his perfect woman. Pygmalion and Galatea, anyone?

I can’t help but feel that Tory was so alone. As a human all she had was her job and Roslin. She and Gaius just used each other, it wasn’t meaningful. She easily let him go. It seems in the end she fled from her humanity into giving her all to be a Cylon, but even then she continued being alone. She didn’t really become close with her fellow Final Five and she had no other friends, human or Cylon. I liked that in finale Ellen had a few moments with Tory, giving her some friendship, but it was too little, too late. Tory lived and died alone.

Because of Tory’s death the secret of resurrection is lost. Chaos erupts on the bridge but Cavil’s side is going to lose, so he kills himself.

We finally learn what happened to the mutineers like Racetrack and Skulls - they were imprisoned, but now they got drafted for this suicide mission to attack the Colony and rescue Hera. These two get shot down early in the mission, but when they drift dead in space, in just the right moment Racetrack’s hand falls down and hits the missile button and the Colony is blown up. This is the true end to Cavil’s faction.

I love how the show isn’t afraid of showing this higher power influencing people and events according to its plan. The moment when Caprica Six and Gaius see Head Six and Head Gaius is still one of my favourites. The whole vision coming true and Kara putting in the coordinates she took from the song and Racetrack’s missiles shooting at just the right time all aren’t an accident.

So they found Earth, our Earth, and they decide to settle all over the planet and start over with a clean slate.

Kara’s goodbye with Sam was just so touching. The dogtags, I love you, “See you on the other side.” Sam took the Fleet into the sun. And when Kara disappeared we know she joined him.

I love how Sam’s flashback about his search for perfection ties with his ending. By becoming a Hybrid he gained access to that higher plane of mathematics and launching the Fleet into the sun was him achieving that “perfect throw” he was looking for. Through the flashback we saw the deeper side of Sam than the jock. It makes so much sense why he’s one of the Final Five.

Everyone’s settling on Earth, Agathons are back to being a happy family. Ellen finally gets to be with Tigh full-time. Adama and Roslin go off to find a place for their cabin by the lake.

I got so emotional when Gaius said “You know, I know about farming.” This is a beautiful ending to his arc. Not only the skeptic became a true believer, also the man who once despised his upbringing, who wanted to be something more and better than a farmer, now goes back to his roots and it’s important and useful skill to have. He’s no longer ashamed of coming from Aerilon.

Adama and Roslin slayed me. I cried when she died and he put the wedding ring on her finger like in her visions from The Hub. I cried again when he sat by her grave and said that the sunrise reminds him of her. Wow. That love.

Roslin’s flashbacks give us one important insight into her - she literally had no life before Galactica. She lost all her family and her life became empty. She tried to fill it - a date with Sean didn’t work, so she threw herself into politics and Adar’s campaign. Galactica and Adama became her real home. As bittersweet is that they couldn’t have a fairytale perfect ending, I appreciate that Roslin died loving him and being loved in return. She brought them all to Earth as the Dying Leader. It was her time to rest.

Speaking of Earth, it looks like D’Anna really stayed on the nuked old Earth because she never showed up after that episode :(((

Lee and Kara. Their love is really tragic because they could never really be together. The flashback of their first meeting when she was Zak’s girlfriend and they almost cheated puts into focus that they were doomed from the start. All they had were those stolen moments, but something always got in the way, sometimes because of their own doing. In my eyes, Lee and Kara had a complicated love, because they were so many different things to each other all at once. I guess in a way Zak’s ghost always stood between them.

So in the end Kara’s like that pigeon, she annoyed Lee to no end so he smashed a few things chasing her and then she flew away when she wanted to and left him alone.

Okay, so maybe to some people tying up BSG to current times, Hera as the mitochondrial Eve, is controversial, but I think it’s pretty brilliant. Showing how people make robots again in real life now is not really as much about robots as about every other issue BSG told us about. Because we have it all here, right now, happening - torture, terrorism, war, slave labour, corruption, everything. By tying the story to our reality the viewers can’t just close it like a book, “it’s just a scifi, it’s fictional, none of it is real, let’s forget every lesson this show imparted because it has nothing to do with reality.” Wrong! Yes, it’s not real, but it talks about things that happen in real life. It shows us that when we only see the same-faced enemy, we forget that they are only human just like us. To avoid the mutual annihilation, we should strive to better understand each other, to find common ground.

So that’s it. This is the end of line. Farewell, BSG, one of the best frakking shows ever made.

[blue-mint-winter]

BSG 2x14 Black Market rewatch

Alright, so this is episode that approaches the subject of bartering in the Fleet, which seems like something natural when the basic supplies are scarce and money doesn’t have much use. However, the Fleet economy is treated so badly and only serves as an excuse for a criminal plot.

I don’t want to jump on a bandwagon of hating this episode, the problem of it is just that it lacks any nuance. It’s not well-thought out and the issue of the black market isn’t well-explained. It’s just an excuse to send Lee on a detective adventure like from a noir story.

As far as I can see, the Fleet has two problems - lack of supplies and the inefficient distribution of resources they have, which creates the black market in the first place. Black market isn’t pulling medicines and other products out of magic hat. It’s all there circulating in the Fleet.

What’s infuriating is that Roslin arbitrarily decides to shut down this thing, but we don’t get to know what’s her plan to solve the supply and distribution crisis.

Fisk is actually running this whole black market operation, but he got garrotted by his civilian accomplices when he got greedy. Which then launches the plot of Lee beginning his investigation into Fisk’s death and the black market.

I like how this episode connects with Epiphanies. It also does some interesting character work with Roslin and Baltar, as well as gives some focus to Lee’s love life.

It turns out that Baltar got the cigar he smoked in Epiphanies from Fisk. Baltar was cozying up with Pegasus’ commander - an alliance clearly meant to counteract Roslin/Adama coalition. Smart of Gaius, but the idea falls apart when Fisk dies.

Roslin and Baltar scene in her office was my favourite. She basically asks him to resign from the vice-presidency and he refuses, which is framed as a parallel of what happened between Roslin and Adar in her flashback from Epiphanies. I like how Roslin is shown to become like Adar, she’s getting more authoritative, “because I said so” leader. She’s no longer looking for compromises. She’s been fashioning herself after Adar since S1 (remember how she treated Wally?) but now it’s more pronounced. This is going to be her big mistake.

So we get the set up of Baltar vs Roslin political rivalry.

Now onto Lee’s love life. We know he’s been out of sorts since his spacewalk. Things didn’t end well when he tried to get with Kara (so there’s some leftover hostility between him and Baltar), Dee’s got Billy, so he turned to a woman, prostitute, who reminds him of a former lover he ran away from on Caprica. Lee’s got some regrets after that, so he became really invested in this woman and her daughter, but turns out they’re part of black market. In the end, the woman doesn’t want to be replacement for the love he lost, so he’s all alone again.

However, Dee’s still interested. Not nice that she was testing water with Lee behind Billy’s back, then ran back to him when Lee didn’t give her the go ahead, but she’s still sneaking glances in his direction. I mean - look at those arms!

Yeah, Lee Adama’s arms are drool-worthy. Best part of the episode lol XD

In the end, the main guy behind the black market is gone, but it’s still in business. Roslin listens to the voice of reason and doesn’t shut it down, because Lee says it’s better to leave it be and just monitor so things don’t get too much out of hand. Also, we learn there are pedo sickos somewhere in the Fleet, but the children are safe, so pedos aren’t investigated any further. At this point I don’t even want to analyze it anymore, let’s just be done with, the episode just wasn’t that well thought out, sadly.

Shout out to Zarek for being a bro and helping Lee out (lol, I know he’s just doing it for his own benefit) and to Ellen for being mentioned. I was surprised she wasn’t in that shady bar with black market guys, looks just like her kind of dive. Anyway, she’s still out there in the wild.