Battlestar Galactica episode commentary: THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

[ninety6tears]

1. Even though several people have commented that they miss the sassy "old Starbuck," I have to say I was at least relieved to believe her actions in this episode; I thought her general frazzled state was understandable, while last episode just made me feel like it wasn't Kara at all. Her conversation with Leoben explained a lot about her mental state, that she's scared that she's become a different person and doesn't really want to face what all of this has to do with what happened to her in "Maelstrom" (which, we not know, she remembers). flowrs4ophelia speculated after watching "Maelstrom" (at which time she was already spoiled on Starbuck coming back) that Kara was going to be resurrected into this sort of purified version of herself that doesn't have all the baggage of all the bad stuff she's gone through in her difficult life, and from what Leoben said it almost seems like this is totally true. But Kara seems kind of stranded in all the unfamiliarity of that, on top of everything else.

2. How much did I love Helo in this episode? The previews kind of made it look like he was getting as aggravated with Kara as everybody else, but it took a hell of a push to get him to disobey Starbuck by the end. And I literally APPLAUDED at the punch/pistol wip combo.

3. No Laura or Adamas in this episode. I missed them, but I thought it was understandable that they focused more on Demetrius since we got pretty much nothing on the mission in the last ep. And it's nice to get a week off of people complaining about my favorite characters :(

4. I mostly enjoy Gaius but when did this show become 50% Baltar? Okay, I thought the interaction between him and Chief (can we still call him Chief?) was really interesting. I was extremely worried when Gaius came into Chief's room to apologize that Chief was just gonna let him give a long speech and then pick up that gun off his stomach and blow him away or something, but then his reaction was very together in a way that gives me hope that he's finally going to bounce off rock bottom and get a grip on his sanity again. But, uh, the comment from someone who was watching this with me was, "Yeah, that worked really well for Boomer." Heh. Heh.

5. I continue to speculate whether Hot Dog has wittle feelings for Kara, hmm. Probably not.

6. More on Chief: I don't understand the buzz cut. I'm pretty sure this wasn't necessary for his new job. I guess it's a small form of self-mutilation to cut off all your hair when you're going insane, but surely he's feeling more drastic than that when he almost shot himself (OMGS, find a middle ground). Okay, I should talk about that. I was really scared he was actually going to go through with it. It would have brought Boomer's suicide attempt in S1 full circle in a really tragic way. That makes me think, though, that one of the four that was revealed in S3 will probably die or "die" at some point. I've voting really die, because I have my doubts that the final five do or can download.

7. I'm starting to realize how extremely excited I am about the potential for the 2/6/8 cylon team to ally with humans. I pretty much predicted that this possibility would be entertained when cylons started shooting at other cylons, but it will obviously take a very long time to seem like a remotely sane idea to many people. But I'm starting to find the Leobens extremely compelling and 6's are kickass and I also like the fact that Sharons and 6's seem to have rubbed each other the wrong way in the past but have put that aside to work together now. And the fact that these three models all have significance to somebody in the fleet (Chief, Gaius, Kara) makes me think this alliance will definitely happen, whether it works or is disastrous or. . .what.

8. lulz at Gaius' smoking jacket he preaches in. That might be all I have to say about his sermon job, except that I can't figure out if any of this stuff is sincere or not. Jee, that's news with Baltar, isn't it?

9. I don't know if we were supposed to assume that there was some rendezvous date the Demetrius was supposed to follow up with before, but it's kind of intense that it's suddenly like, "If we don't meet up with Galactica in two days they're supposed to assume we're all dead." And Kara's comment that she trusted Adama to wait longer if they don't go back hurts my soul cause I don't know if it's true. Anyway, DISETTLING.

10. Is it logical by now to assume that Kara's desire to ally with Leoben indicates that this is a big cylon trap and they're going to jump right into range of a shit-ton of raiders? Wouldn't she have just pretended she knew for sure they were going to earth and done that a lot sooner if she was an evil self-conscious cylon?

Overall, I kinda loved the episode and I definitely thought it was better than the last two. It managed to have not a whole lot happen without me feeling extremely unfulfilled after the hour was up.