Goodbye, BSG

[ninety6tears]

So I've done a lot of thinking and this is why I have a problem with what they did with Kara:
It was inconsistent. Period.
This show is a strange one, because it manages to mix mystical and fated elements with extremely realistic suffering and the dark sides of human nature, and even though there's been a general feeling for the entire show that a higher power is guiding them, nothing in the show so far has given us reason to believe that they would kill a main character, whip up a miracle to bring her back, and bring her back for good. Because it would feel like she gets to live just because she's Starbuck and they can't kill Starbuck, right? So I've been accepting since the end of season three that even though she'll be back to function as a character, a part of her is dead, she's changed, she's not the same Kara.
Okay, but: This season gradually convinced me that I was wrong about this, simply because it didn't make sense to give Starbuck the kind of struggles she was going through if she was simply living on borrowed time. My initial reaction was, So she's an angel that wasn't aware of being an angel and had to struggle with the very paradox of her existence on top of figuring out her fate, and that's kind of interesting. But at the same time, making her Kara Thrace through and through was simply cruel, to her and to the viewers. Because what makes it blaringly obvious that RDM didn't know Kara was going to just become dust up until he actually was writing the finale is that Starbuck, for this entire season, has been conducting her life as if it is going to go on, and that in itself signifies that she had something to live for other than her function as a guide. Being trusted by Adama still mattered to her, being believed by her loved ones mattered to her on a purely emotional level, even setting things right with Sam eventually mattered, and why? - if she's just a dead chick who is supposed to subconsciously realize that she's not here to stay? They set things up for her story to continue, and they even gave closure on some things and not on others, but then, no, Kara doesn't get closure because her only purpose is to give her people Earth. I can deal with the very tragic element of her entire existence being destined for greatness with a life that could never really be her own, but that wasn't what we got from the rest of the season and it's all very disorienting.

Other things:

The Centurion war paint was badass, I loved that.

Lots of awesome stuff in the battle, raiders getting spliced into Vipers and all. It didn't feel like the kind of action we're used to (maybe just because of the different setting), but I guess it's cool that it was different.

Boomer=predictable. I was surprised to see that it was Helo who wanted to kill her first and Athena stopping him, not the other way around.

Head!Gaius and Head!Six in the same scene and actually interacting is something I always said would be, "the sexiest damn thing ever but will probably never happen." And it HAPPENED, and that was probably the moment in the whole episode I was flailing the most. The way they brought together Gaius and Caprica was just too gorgeous for words. It was perfect. They've always been the ship I definitely ship but don't think about most of the time, and I was pleasantly surprised they ended their story so beautifully. It felt like Gaius had always been sort of a despicable person because he was running away from himself, all the time, and in the end he can now be a very simple person and just be happy that way.

Everything about people's lives on the new Earth have to be evaluated from a very stripped-down, starting-anew perspective, which is...hard. It's hard for me to accept without any further scenes with Lee after Kara disappears that he's going to be grateful enough to be alive to be able to just start completely over and be happy. Literally every person that Lee had any kind of relationship or basic friendship with (including Anders even), is gone. Since he isn't in the scene with the group hiking uphill, I think we're to assume he actually just went exploring all by himself, going off all alone like Chief. Do they both plan on just disappearing forever? There's something very poetic but also very...terrifying about that.

But the last five-ten minutes of this was gorgeous. Helo and Athena walking along with Hera in all that green grass, it was just beautiful. I also loved the bit, of course, with mystical Gaius and Caprica, cocky as ever, walking around future Earth. I think that was the moment when I realized I certainly did like the finale. As a lot of people have said, this won't be one of my favorite episodes, as I'm not sure I necessarily expected it to be. But it was a decent way to wrap up a show which, in the end, is better at asking questions than giving us the answers. But I knew that all along.

...And I feel like this today.

*sigh* Goodbye, characters. I shall miss you so.

Comments

[encyclops.livejournal.com]

Interesting take on the Kara thing!

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of...more confused by the whole thing now that I've heard it's supposed to be sort of open-ended. I'm willing to just say she's an angel and leave it at that.