Recap 4.17: Someone to Watch Over Me
My apologies for the long break between recaps! I bring you "Someone to Watch Over Me."
We open with an unknown figure playing a tune that is somewhat familiar to us. Lights flickering in the bunkroom. Kara sees her skeletal face in the mirror, caresses the dead tags. Showers. In this moment I'm always struck by how expansive the shower stall appears, if it is a stall. Shower fic is a time-honored tradition, but have we been getting it wrong all these years?
There's a real nice bit of her giving the briefing simultaneously to the pilots and, by rote, to herself. Then she offers them the last tube of toothpaste left in the universe. Amusingly, it's called Felgercarb, the other space curse from Old BSG. She tells the pilots to enjoy the alone time, wank as little as possible, and conserve their O2. Good hunting. For a depressing contrast, compare this to the briefing she gives in Bastille Day.
Now we're in a meeting with Chief, Adama, Lee, Roslin, and Sonja. Laura's hands are shaking. Sonja wants Boomer returned to the baseship so that they can try her for treason. Chief is displeased. Looking a bit grey too in the beard. I notice these things only because I don't care that much about this scene.
This week we have 39,556 survivors.
We are treated to tremors all over the ship. Minor characters yay. Various cylons and co. are crowded around Sam's bed in sickbay. Cottle is not happy: "The last thing we need is you jerking our chain with a lot of quack ideas, so why don't you take them someplace else." Kara doesn't want to hear those quack ideas either. She remarks that Anders's eyes were closed last time, and we realize that they're creepily open right now. Cottle tells her to get on with her life. She touches his heart and then almost cries and it's super sad.
Cut to piano playing and a real freaking awesome shot of her tattoo reflected in a mirror at Joe's bar. She and Slick start arguing. Actually, she's arguing, he's just sort of doing his thing. She doesn't have a lot of respect for that, as his music didn't stop one frakking missile.
Inquiring minds want to know: does the bartender think she's talking to herself, or is she not, in fact, speaking aloud?
Chief and other Cylons work on repairs. He looks at Boomer. My disc is damaged so I'm not sure what he says to her. But then he complains about people drawing their power from the same bus, which is meaningless tech-lingo to mean.
Kara goes to see Helo and Hera in what has to be one of the cutest scenes in this show. A) Because Hera is cute and Kara almost baby-talks to her, and B) because Helo is Kara's only friend in this episode, and he has done something really nice for her. BUT this raises the question--when she came back from the dead, none of the pilots offered to give her stuff back? And they didn't feel the slightest bit bad about, say, wearing her favorite hat when she's sleeping in the bunk across from them? Anyway, she leaves with just the recording (Dreilide Thrace: Live at the Helice Opera House) and Hera's drawing.
Fun fact: there is a red hedgehog in that box. I call it Mr. Prickles.
We go from cute to…kinda cute but also kinda weird and creepy: Chief staring at Boomer in the brig. I remember that I still liked both of these characters the first time I saw this. Boomer introduces him (via shared projection) to the creepy domicile. Domicylon as the TWOP recapper who predated Jacob might have said. Boomer has a real Stepford look on her face. Galen somewhat understandably freaks out.
And we are back at the piano. Kara slow claps. I love slow claps. Not really. I do love this dialogue though.
Kara: I thought I'd see if you were making any progress.
Slick: You tell me.
Kara: It's longer. Lot o' notes.
Slick: You hate it.
Kara: I didn't say that.
Slick: You were savagely honest with me the other night. Why be diplomatic now?
Kara: I'm not being diplomatic, you oversensitive jackass! I said I liked it.
I love this exchange because a) it's kinda funny, b) she totally didn't say she liked it, and c) she calls him an "oversensitive jackass."
However, this exchange is followed by yet another awesome exchange, in which Kara says that his song reminds her of chasing after a car. Slick is displeased, as he was going for loss rather than car chase. Kara gets adorably flustered as she tries to explain, and then proceeds to shatter my heart with this line: "That's…that's what I meant. It's like losing someone that you care about. Their car pulls away; you chase them. But they're going too fast."
Meanwhile, the Tighs are talking with Galen and Tory. I urge anyone who has not yet done so to watch the deleted scene that shows the rest of their conversation--it's fascinating. The Chief talks about ending the cycle of violence (ironic, given his later actions) and delivers this great line to Tory: "There isn't a soul in this fleet that doesn't have blood on their hands. Directly or indirectly, we've all done our share of killing." The camera gives us a shot of Tigh (which, to my mind, harkens way back to the mini when Tigh gave the order to vent those compartments) but I am rather preoccupied with the fact that Tyrol is saying this to Tory, of all people.
The non-deleted bit is less interesting to me. Chief is pissy. He wants them to help Boomer, but Ellen wants her to stand trial. Tigh is also pissy. And very cheerful. Ellen reminds us that he just lost his child. I sort of appreciate the reminder, as I had forgotten, but only sort of because I had attempted to block that storyline from my memory. Thanks Ellen.
Back to Boomer and Chief in the brig, discussing the Domicylon. He denies obsessing over the details of their future house, insists that he was just being thorough. My bitter heart actually starts to feel something for these two. But wait…it gets creepy again! Because Boomer has made an imaginary child to go with the imaginary house. I don't even know how to approach dealing with this psychological mess.
Thank the gods we're back at that piano, and back on (for me) familiar ground. Kara is more relaxed, sitting with her feet on the piano bench while he plays. Something by another composer, as she quickly points out. Slick corrects her pronunciation of the composer's name, and this detail is maybe my favorite little bit. Kara's paid enough attention to classical composers to recognize a piece from just a few bars--not just recognize that it's familiar, but to know the composer and the title. That means she's paid quite a lot of attention to classical music, but the fact that she doesn't know how to pronounce his name suggests, to me, that it's not something she's ever shared. Not even with her father--if she'd learned the name from him, after all, she would have learned the correct pronunciation, right? And the award for overanalyzing goes to…
Slick asks if Kara hates the piano because her father played, and she says no. "No. No I loved it actually. He used to sit me next to him on the bench when he played, smell of tobacco on his breath. He taught me a few songs. I used to try so hard to get 'em right. Not because I was afraid he'd be angry but because I knew he'd be so proud." We begin to see Little!Kara as she remembers the song that made her feel "happy and sad at the same time" and the episode is clearly going for the record in How Many Times Can We Break Shah Of Blah's Heart?
Next up: creepy dream in the hangar with the kid at the piano. They cast that girl so, so well. There's an extended version of this on the DVDs as well, though it's not particularly Earth-shattering. Just a bit more lead-in as she dresses and heads down to the hangar.
The following scene is somewhat odd in that Kara confesses her deepest secret to this stranger. I choose to believe she does so because her subconscious is, on some level, aware that he's A) her daddy, and B) kindasortamaybe imaginary.
Chief doesn't want Roslin to hand Boomer over to the Cylons. She tells him that Sharon Valerii preys upon personal feelings, at which point I raise my eyebrow and say, "Really? Really?" They make her sound like some cunning manipulator when she has spent most of the show bumbling around, being an outcast and a pawn and generally failing at all of her endeavors. The idea that Sharon is so much more evil/dangerous than the other cylons (who committed genocide--she was genuinely not involved in that) just seems implausible to me at this point.
What follows is one of those things that turned a lot of viewers against the Chief: he murders an innocent Eight. And nobody says a word about this. Ever again. That, to me, is the real crime--that the show completely failed to address his action.
Kara tells her Head!Father to get laid, which is a little odd considering. I love the way she asks him why he left his wife though--so blunt, demanding. It's beautifully shot as well. "Did you ever stop thinking about yourself long enough to consider what you did to your kid?" Yup, breaking my heart. One more time. [Show: 3, Shah's Heart: 0]
Alas, dead Eight. We hardly knew you.
Kara confesses that she never played the piano after her father left, and we're treated to the one and only instance of her anger against her dad whom she loves. They're really just going for the heartbreak record here as he coaxes her into playing the song her dad taught her. She almost cries (!) and can't do it.
"Great. I hope you're here to fix the frakking shower." Why does Sharon assume that any Cylon is there to work rather than to, say, use the head? Maybe because Boomer's in civvies and this is an officer's head? Curious. I can't really comment on what follows. It's frakked up in more ways than one and I do not enjoy watching it.
Cut away to Saul, Ellen, and Tory. Tigh talks about seeing "him" with his eyes open. It's unclear whether he's talking about Anders or Liam. (If the latter, …whaaaa?) "Little guy" implies that it's the baby, which is strange and…medically hard to believe? I am not sure about these things.
I am happy when we get back to the piano because no matter how many times they break my heart, they cannot be as disturbing as the preceding scenes. And hey look, Hera drew musical notes! [But how do they know how to line it up on the staff? Just lucky I guess?]
This is, quite honestly, the scene that makes the entire episode because the building music is so creepy and disturbing and frakking electrifying. Meanwhile, Boomer kidnaps a toddler, Tigh makes his crazy face, and if anyone reading this recap isn't listening to the song right now I urge you to fix that.
Then Kara realizes Slick is her daddy just in time for Tigh to spin her around and for reality to come crashing down.
Boomer: I can't do it without you.
Chief: Yeah you can.
I like the "yeah you can" sentiment, although I'm not sure what he thinks she's going to do or why he thinks they'll meet again. It's not easy to watch the rest of this, but the moment when Athena starts smacking Helo on the back always impresses me with just how much Grace Park has grown as an actress since the first season.
Boomer gets away. Roslin seems to be waking from a nap. Sharon jumps too close to the ship and there are lots of explosions. Roslin goes back to sleep. Chief should maybe feel a little bad.
The Tighs try to figure things out. Saul wonders how a child could know that song. Unfortunately, this question will be forever unanswered. BUT Kara finally gets some rest, curled up with her comatose husband while her father plays on. So much for moving on, eh?
Discussion Questions:
+ Personally, I loved this episode as I am an unabashed Kara fan and I love everything to do with her, but a lot of people--Kara fans included--were disappointed by this episode as it did not really answer any questions. For myself, I find the lack of payoff to be more indicative of flaws in the narrative as a whole rather than flaws in the episode. What did you think?
+ A lot of people were angered by certain events in this episode. If you are one of those people, with whom were you the most angry/disappointed: Boomer, Tyrol, Helo, or the writers?
+ Boomer's projected house: creepy or sweet? Both? Neither?
+ A popular fan theory at the time was that Kara's father was the mysterious Number Seven, Daniel. Although this episode made the name Dreilide canon, it didn't exactly disprove the theory. In retrospect, do you like the idea of Kara being half-cylon or are you glad they did not choose that route?
+ Kara Thrace and her Special Destiny: like/dislike? Anything else you want to share about 4.17?
All caps from frak-that.com.
We open with an unknown figure playing a tune that is somewhat familiar to us. Lights flickering in the bunkroom. Kara sees her skeletal face in the mirror, caresses the dead tags. Showers. In this moment I'm always struck by how expansive the shower stall appears, if it is a stall. Shower fic is a time-honored tradition, but have we been getting it wrong all these years?
There's a real nice bit of her giving the briefing simultaneously to the pilots and, by rote, to herself. Then she offers them the last tube of toothpaste left in the universe. Amusingly, it's called Felgercarb, the other space curse from Old BSG. She tells the pilots to enjoy the alone time, wank as little as possible, and conserve their O2. Good hunting. For a depressing contrast, compare this to the briefing she gives in Bastille Day.
Now we're in a meeting with Chief, Adama, Lee, Roslin, and Sonja. Laura's hands are shaking. Sonja wants Boomer returned to the baseship so that they can try her for treason. Chief is displeased. Looking a bit grey too in the beard. I notice these things only because I don't care that much about this scene.
This week we have 39,556 survivors.
We are treated to tremors all over the ship. Minor characters yay. Various cylons and co. are crowded around Sam's bed in sickbay. Cottle is not happy: "The last thing we need is you jerking our chain with a lot of quack ideas, so why don't you take them someplace else." Kara doesn't want to hear those quack ideas either. She remarks that Anders's eyes were closed last time, and we realize that they're creepily open right now. Cottle tells her to get on with her life. She touches his heart and then almost cries and it's super sad.
Cut to piano playing and a real freaking awesome shot of her tattoo reflected in a mirror at Joe's bar. She and Slick start arguing. Actually, she's arguing, he's just sort of doing his thing. She doesn't have a lot of respect for that, as his music didn't stop one frakking missile.
Inquiring minds want to know: does the bartender think she's talking to herself, or is she not, in fact, speaking aloud?
Chief and other Cylons work on repairs. He looks at Boomer. My disc is damaged so I'm not sure what he says to her. But then he complains about people drawing their power from the same bus, which is meaningless tech-lingo to mean.
Kara goes to see Helo and Hera in what has to be one of the cutest scenes in this show. A) Because Hera is cute and Kara almost baby-talks to her, and B) because Helo is Kara's only friend in this episode, and he has done something really nice for her. BUT this raises the question--when she came back from the dead, none of the pilots offered to give her stuff back? And they didn't feel the slightest bit bad about, say, wearing her favorite hat when she's sleeping in the bunk across from them? Anyway, she leaves with just the recording (Dreilide Thrace: Live at the Helice Opera House) and Hera's drawing.
Fun fact: there is a red hedgehog in that box. I call it Mr. Prickles.
We go from cute to…kinda cute but also kinda weird and creepy: Chief staring at Boomer in the brig. I remember that I still liked both of these characters the first time I saw this. Boomer introduces him (via shared projection) to the creepy domicile. Domicylon as the TWOP recapper who predated Jacob might have said. Boomer has a real Stepford look on her face. Galen somewhat understandably freaks out.
And we are back at the piano. Kara slow claps. I love slow claps. Not really. I do love this dialogue though.
Kara: I thought I'd see if you were making any progress.
Slick: You tell me.
Kara: It's longer. Lot o' notes.
Slick: You hate it.
Kara: I didn't say that.
Slick: You were savagely honest with me the other night. Why be diplomatic now?
Kara: I'm not being diplomatic, you oversensitive jackass! I said I liked it.
I love this exchange because a) it's kinda funny, b) she totally didn't say she liked it, and c) she calls him an "oversensitive jackass."
However, this exchange is followed by yet another awesome exchange, in which Kara says that his song reminds her of chasing after a car. Slick is displeased, as he was going for loss rather than car chase. Kara gets adorably flustered as she tries to explain, and then proceeds to shatter my heart with this line: "That's…that's what I meant. It's like losing someone that you care about. Their car pulls away; you chase them. But they're going too fast."
Meanwhile, the Tighs are talking with Galen and Tory. I urge anyone who has not yet done so to watch the deleted scene that shows the rest of their conversation--it's fascinating. The Chief talks about ending the cycle of violence (ironic, given his later actions) and delivers this great line to Tory: "There isn't a soul in this fleet that doesn't have blood on their hands. Directly or indirectly, we've all done our share of killing." The camera gives us a shot of Tigh (which, to my mind, harkens way back to the mini when Tigh gave the order to vent those compartments) but I am rather preoccupied with the fact that Tyrol is saying this to Tory, of all people.
The non-deleted bit is less interesting to me. Chief is pissy. He wants them to help Boomer, but Ellen wants her to stand trial. Tigh is also pissy. And very cheerful. Ellen reminds us that he just lost his child. I sort of appreciate the reminder, as I had forgotten, but only sort of because I had attempted to block that storyline from my memory. Thanks Ellen.
Back to Boomer and Chief in the brig, discussing the Domicylon. He denies obsessing over the details of their future house, insists that he was just being thorough. My bitter heart actually starts to feel something for these two. But wait…it gets creepy again! Because Boomer has made an imaginary child to go with the imaginary house. I don't even know how to approach dealing with this psychological mess.
Thank the gods we're back at that piano, and back on (for me) familiar ground. Kara is more relaxed, sitting with her feet on the piano bench while he plays. Something by another composer, as she quickly points out. Slick corrects her pronunciation of the composer's name, and this detail is maybe my favorite little bit. Kara's paid enough attention to classical composers to recognize a piece from just a few bars--not just recognize that it's familiar, but to know the composer and the title. That means she's paid quite a lot of attention to classical music, but the fact that she doesn't know how to pronounce his name suggests, to me, that it's not something she's ever shared. Not even with her father--if she'd learned the name from him, after all, she would have learned the correct pronunciation, right? And the award for overanalyzing goes to…
Slick asks if Kara hates the piano because her father played, and she says no. "No. No I loved it actually. He used to sit me next to him on the bench when he played, smell of tobacco on his breath. He taught me a few songs. I used to try so hard to get 'em right. Not because I was afraid he'd be angry but because I knew he'd be so proud." We begin to see Little!Kara as she remembers the song that made her feel "happy and sad at the same time" and the episode is clearly going for the record in How Many Times Can We Break Shah Of Blah's Heart?
Next up: creepy dream in the hangar with the kid at the piano. They cast that girl so, so well. There's an extended version of this on the DVDs as well, though it's not particularly Earth-shattering. Just a bit more lead-in as she dresses and heads down to the hangar.
The following scene is somewhat odd in that Kara confesses her deepest secret to this stranger. I choose to believe she does so because her subconscious is, on some level, aware that he's A) her daddy, and B) kindasortamaybe imaginary.
Chief doesn't want Roslin to hand Boomer over to the Cylons. She tells him that Sharon Valerii preys upon personal feelings, at which point I raise my eyebrow and say, "Really? Really?" They make her sound like some cunning manipulator when she has spent most of the show bumbling around, being an outcast and a pawn and generally failing at all of her endeavors. The idea that Sharon is so much more evil/dangerous than the other cylons (who committed genocide--she was genuinely not involved in that) just seems implausible to me at this point.
What follows is one of those things that turned a lot of viewers against the Chief: he murders an innocent Eight. And nobody says a word about this. Ever again. That, to me, is the real crime--that the show completely failed to address his action.
Kara tells her Head!Father to get laid, which is a little odd considering. I love the way she asks him why he left his wife though--so blunt, demanding. It's beautifully shot as well. "Did you ever stop thinking about yourself long enough to consider what you did to your kid?" Yup, breaking my heart. One more time. [Show: 3, Shah's Heart: 0]
Alas, dead Eight. We hardly knew you.
Kara confesses that she never played the piano after her father left, and we're treated to the one and only instance of her anger against her dad whom she loves. They're really just going for the heartbreak record here as he coaxes her into playing the song her dad taught her. She almost cries (!) and can't do it.
"Great. I hope you're here to fix the frakking shower." Why does Sharon assume that any Cylon is there to work rather than to, say, use the head? Maybe because Boomer's in civvies and this is an officer's head? Curious. I can't really comment on what follows. It's frakked up in more ways than one and I do not enjoy watching it.
Cut away to Saul, Ellen, and Tory. Tigh talks about seeing "him" with his eyes open. It's unclear whether he's talking about Anders or Liam. (If the latter, …whaaaa?) "Little guy" implies that it's the baby, which is strange and…medically hard to believe? I am not sure about these things.
I am happy when we get back to the piano because no matter how many times they break my heart, they cannot be as disturbing as the preceding scenes. And hey look, Hera drew musical notes! [But how do they know how to line it up on the staff? Just lucky I guess?]
This is, quite honestly, the scene that makes the entire episode because the building music is so creepy and disturbing and frakking electrifying. Meanwhile, Boomer kidnaps a toddler, Tigh makes his crazy face, and if anyone reading this recap isn't listening to the song right now I urge you to fix that.
Then Kara realizes Slick is her daddy just in time for Tigh to spin her around and for reality to come crashing down.
Boomer: I can't do it without you.
Chief: Yeah you can.
I like the "yeah you can" sentiment, although I'm not sure what he thinks she's going to do or why he thinks they'll meet again. It's not easy to watch the rest of this, but the moment when Athena starts smacking Helo on the back always impresses me with just how much Grace Park has grown as an actress since the first season.
Boomer gets away. Roslin seems to be waking from a nap. Sharon jumps too close to the ship and there are lots of explosions. Roslin goes back to sleep. Chief should maybe feel a little bad.
The Tighs try to figure things out. Saul wonders how a child could know that song. Unfortunately, this question will be forever unanswered. BUT Kara finally gets some rest, curled up with her comatose husband while her father plays on. So much for moving on, eh?
Discussion Questions:
+ Personally, I loved this episode as I am an unabashed Kara fan and I love everything to do with her, but a lot of people--Kara fans included--were disappointed by this episode as it did not really answer any questions. For myself, I find the lack of payoff to be more indicative of flaws in the narrative as a whole rather than flaws in the episode. What did you think?
+ A lot of people were angered by certain events in this episode. If you are one of those people, with whom were you the most angry/disappointed: Boomer, Tyrol, Helo, or the writers?
+ Boomer's projected house: creepy or sweet? Both? Neither?
+ A popular fan theory at the time was that Kara's father was the mysterious Number Seven, Daniel. Although this episode made the name Dreilide canon, it didn't exactly disprove the theory. In retrospect, do you like the idea of Kara being half-cylon or are you glad they did not choose that route?
+ Kara Thrace and her Special Destiny: like/dislike? Anything else you want to share about 4.17?
All caps from frak-that.com.