Battlestar Galactica episode commentary: GUESS WHAT'S COMING TO DINNER

[ninety6tears]

1. I have to admit I was grinning a lot through the first Lee scene even though the situation definitely wasn't funny just cause I was happy to see him again. As usual, lots of people are annoyed by him and think he's being manipulated by somebody else. And as usual (not that I don't think he's in danger of becoming a pawn in some evil plans of Zarek's) I disagree, and really liked what he was doing in this episode. Even though the tension is still there between him and Laura, it was nice to have some interaction between them that felt more personal and showed in a subtle way that they hate the idea of becoming political enemies. I truly think that when he wanted to know if the rumors about the visions were true, he just wanted to know. He was just an old friend saying, "OMG WHAT?"

2. Tigh isn't one of my favorite characters, but I'll still be disappointed if he doesn't start using his noggin some time soon. He's proving to be almost as bad a liar as Baltar, and his absurd paranoia will give him away even sooner. But why, WHY, doesn't it occur to him or any of the four that it would probably be better for everybody in the fleet if they gave themselves up, and told the whole truth, which is really that they don't know what the hell's going on? Because it's going to be a lot harder to convince anybody that they don't know what the hell's going on if they're found out in any other way. My guess is that if anybody smartens up and does this, it's going to be Tyrol. Not just because he's a good guy, but because he'll be thinking about Boomer and how she wasn't in control of what she did and how maybe everything might have been better for her if she'd gone right into Adama's office and just said, "Look. I'm scared." She probably had some kind of programming that wouldn't have permitted this, but who's to say these cylons do. I really doubt any of the four models have any assassination attempts waiting to be activated, but they have other reasons that it would be the safe thing to do to come out of the closet. I might lose my patience soon for how much longer they go without addressing this possibility.

3. Yeah, so they only gave us a tiny little aspect of this episode in the teaser clips. But they pretty much gave away that Natalie was gonna get shot. At first I was kinda like, 'WTF ATHENA' but I understand she was being a protective mother and for how much she and Helo went through to get their baby I'm not surprised she's a little overprotective. Side note: Did anybody else think that blank-faced appearance of Tyrol while she was running around looking for Hera was just to say "status: still fixin shit and being depressed."

4. My fellow viewer who was sitting next to me thinks that Kara is going into inner-torture-denial mode on the "harbinger of death" revelation. I have no idea what she's doing, but I got the impression that Kara going to tell Laura about what the hybrid said was kind of an attempt to help her do her thing just in case she ends up being the wrong person to lead anybody. She could be denying what she heard because she really has nothing else to prove herself for, but on the other hand we didn't exactly see her having any dictating role in anything.

5. I was already prepared for the slight disappointment of no Kara/Lee interaction in the episode, but my shipper lenses certainly did not miss Lee's briefly attentive look at Kara when she walked into the conference room. I wish the mood was lighter so she could be teasing him about his new job.

6. I had to make a joke about Gaeta now having a peg leg to match Tigh's eye patch, but I was seriously sad to see them do the amputation. The singing was cool; got to be a bit much by the end. I'm interested in seeing how this affects Gaeta's, and Sam's, character. It's hard to say if Felix will eventually be able to be zen about it or if he'll try to rip off one of Anders' appendages. I'm kinda leaning towards the latter.

7. It's weird to say this, but Roslin and the hybrid's personalities = not compatible AT ALL. I was imagining some extreme frustration on Laura's end listening to the hybrid's psychobabble. But hey, they didn't subject us to that, did they?

8. I don't know about Gaius, as usual. So are he and Tory supposed to actually be in a relationship? If so, he's managed to date probably the only female on Galactica who is actually below him. But when I think about it, that's probably what keeps their scenes together interesting.

9. Jeebus Christ, I can't help looking forward to the angst that will ensue when Adama is without his woman. I don't want to jinx it, but I think if she's gone for a long time we can depend on their reunion signifying some kind of turning point in their relationship. But the longer she's away from the fleet, that's definitely not going to be good for her condition.

10. Okay, seriously? Is Romo Lampkin coming back?

ETA: One of my favorite old theories is exactly that there was going to be a cylon-on-cylon rebellion and that one side would help the humans win the war by destroying the resurrection ships, and I was ecstatically flipping out when this came up in the episode. I have always loved the idea that some of the cylons would finally accept mortality as the final step in achieving humanity since I thought their arrogant "I can't die" thing was unnerving and hypocritical. I admit I imagined this kind of thing happening when one side of the cylon race has realized that their best option is to peacefully live among humans and the circumstances are quite different, but I'm still super excited to see where this is going.


Bummer on the two-week gap coming up, but it could be worse. I was under the impression that the next ep. was gonna be the last before the season split, so I'm pleasantly surprised that I was wrong.