Someone to Watch Over Hera & Starbuck

Kenneth Hynek • 2nd Mar 2009 • Entertainment, Science Fiction • All Along the Watchtower, Athena, Battlestar Galactica, Bear McCreary, Bob Dylan, Boomer, Caprica, Cavil, Charlie Chaplin, Chico Marx, City Lights, Cylon, Daniel Greystone, David Weddle, Dreilide Thrace, Earth, Ellen Tigh, Felix Gaeta, Final Five, First Hybrid, Galen Tyrol, Gauis Baltar, Helo, Henry Beston, Hera Agathon, Ionian Nebula, Kara Thrace, Laura Roslin, Lee Adama, Leoben Conoy, Night on the Great Beach, Number Eight, Number Seven, Number Six, Ron Moore, Samuel Anders, Saul Tigh, Sharon Agathon, Sharon Valeri, Socrata Thrace, Sonja, Starbuck, The Outermost House, Tory Foster, William Adama

So let’s re-cap: Hera Agathon has once again been abducted, Sharon Valeri (Boomer) has once again betrayed the Fleet with the (unwitting) assistance of Galen Tyrol, Laura Roslin is down and possibly dead, and the good ship Galactica is slowly but surely rattling itself to pieces, despite the best efforts of repair crews.

Did I miss anything? Yes, I did: Kara Thrace is about to experience something huge, and her much-neglected (of late) destiny appears to involve the Final Five and little Hera in ways previously unsuspected.

Oh, yeah, one other thing: Ellen is a minor character in this episode, with barely any lines, but her characterization seems to have shifted yet again. Either that or she’s a hypocrite of the worst order, chastising Tory Foster for being hard on Saul on the grounds that he just lost his kid. Has she forgotten that she was the architect of that loss?

There appears to be a trend, now, in minor plot details that come up in these, the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica: the things which formed the pivotal basis of scenes in previous episodes get followed up with by means of a perfunctory comment in the latest episode. The current example of this is, of course, the election of the Number Six-model Cylon named Sonja to the newly-formed Quorum of Ships’ Captains, the creation of which had been previously discussed and debated by Lee Adama and Laura Roslin. Whereas this had previously been a topic of heated discussion and debate — even to the point of being one of Felix Gaeta‘s reasons for launching his mutiny — it is now a settled fact, mentioned only in a “throwaway” fashion.

Which I suppose is an artifact of the pace the show has had to take on in light of the fact that the number of plot points still left open is diminishing at a far slower pace than is the number of remaining episodes in which those various threads can be tied off.

Anyhow, that’s the preamble. Mind the spoilers from here on in.

All This has Happened Before…

I was reminded, watching “Someone to Watch Over Me,” of an earlier “Starbuck“-themed episode, which (not coincidentally?) came near the end of one of the show’s seasons (its third). Of course, I’m speaking about “Maelstrom,” in which Kara has to confront one of her personal demons — her relationship with her mother — before she can pursue her destiny to its next stage. This episode puts her through a similar situation, albeit without the apparition of Leoben Conoy guiding her through it; this time, however, the demon she’s confronting is her relationship with her father.

Of course, this was very much an “on board” episode, so there was no gas giant for Kara to fly into and die inside of, only to again be reborn in time for the series’ finalé. Nor was Lee Adama really all that visible in the episode.

Still, the core elements are there: Kara confronting her past, and her relationship with a parent, as a kind of necessary precursor to proceeding in her destiny. Key to this confrontation is her act of forgiveness; she forgives her mother by her act of returning to Socrata Thrace‘s bedside; she forgives her father by act of again accepting his invitation to play a song with him.

Yes, that was Kara’s father

The piano player, Slick, was in fact a vision of Dreilide Thrace, Starbuck’s father. This wasn’t formally communicated in the episode, although the scene at the end of their play-through of “All Along the Watchtower” — with her recognizing how he “shoots” the last note of the song — was meant to convey that meaning to us, the viewers. One notes that Kara’s next line, to Saul Tigh, cut off with her saying “My father…” and then turning to where the vision of Slick had been.

Subtle. Perhaps too subtle; I didn’t catch it until the second watch-through.

Also, a note on that odd first name:

The name ‘Dreilide’ is German for ‘three eyelids’ (‘drei Lide’) and refers to the inner (third) eyelid, regarded as the gateway to the soul and realms of higher consciousness. The third eye is often associated with visions, clairvoyance, precognition, and out-of-body experiences, and people who have allegedly developed the capacity to use their third eyes are sometimes known as seers.

The good folks at Battlestar Wiki also note that the analogous character in the original series, Chameleon, was named for a creature that actually does have a third eye, of sorts.

All Along the Rocktower

Bear McCreary explains the scene, which features three revelations. Realistically, I should have expected that they’d break out into another rendition of “Watchtower,” but I was still mildly surprised by the reveal; Bear did an excellent job keeping the tune subtle until the appropriate moment. The revelation that Slick was, in fact, the missing Mr. Thrace accompanied this other reveal, and was in fact the context for it.

Saith Bear:

The sequence where the song is revealed was by far the most difficult scene in the episode, for everyone involved. The scene would live or die depending on when we gave away the reveal of the song. I didn’t want to tip it too early, nor did I want to risk a portion of the audience not getting it at all.

At the beginning of the scene, Kara has an epiphany and realizes that Hera’s drawing is music. She puts it on the piano before them, and Slick helps her perform it. The instant he starts playing the left hand accompaniment could have easily given the whole thing away.

During production, Roark had been teaching Katee to play my duet so effectively that they had basically mastered it. As a result, they started playing the recognizable riff far too early in the scene. I was left with the challenging task of still matching their every movement, note by note, but also diluting the thematic quality and allow it to build.

With Slick coaxing her along, Kara begins to noodle around on the keys, struggling to bring the melody up from her oldest memories. These shots are inter-cut with Boomer retrieving Hera from the nursery and sneaking her aboard a raptor, unbeknownst to the Chief who is helping her escape. Throughout the whole montage, the mysterious piano strains slowly become more and more familiar, underscored with a haunting bed of strings and synths.

Finally, Kara remembers. The music gains momentum, and now BG score instruments begin to rise up from the shadows of the music. We zoom in on Col. Tigh as he slowly recognizes the melody that switched him on.

And with that, the score bursts alive. The entire arsenal of percussion blasts in, accompanied by Paul Cartwright on electric violin, John Avila on electric bass and Steve Bartek on electric guitars and electric sitar. Kara’s right hand melody is doubled with Chris Bleth’s wailing duduk, zurna and Martin St. Pierre’s erhu. The arrangement is the most aggressive and rockin’ version of the Final Four theme since Season Three’s “Heeding the Call.”

“That’s the song,” Tory says, in shock. But, the remarkable thing is that’s not. As I mentioned earlier, there was no instrumental melody in Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” that would work for this episode’s needs. As a result, the music they’re hearing is in fact, my music: The Final Four Theme.

The scene culminates in Kara finally recognizing her father. The writers, Nankin and I had tried to come with up a unique performance technique that could be used to trigger the realization. David Weddle recalled “We looked at Chico Marx for his style of piano playing. And one trick of his that we kept in the script and that made it to the final cut was Chico’s trademark of ‘shooting a key’ by miming that his hand was a six gun. Nankin came up with the brilliant topper of having young Kara pretend to blow the smoke from Slick’s fingertip/gun barrel. This is the moment that she realizes Slick is actually her father.

‘Very early on, I had wanted this moment to be a visceral and silent one – like the devastating moment at the end of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘City Lights,’ when the blind girl realizes the tramp is her secret benefactor by recognizing the touch of his hand. This is why we wrote the moment where Slick squeezes the rim of Kara’s ear. In the script, that gesture was the instant. Kara realizes it is her father and hopefully the audience does too because they’ve seen the same gesture in a flashback. Nankin added Kara blowing on Slick’s gun barrel/finger and it was brilliant because she does it before she even realizes what she’s doing, a subconscious act that awakens a realization.”

I’ve re-watched that scene a half-dozen times; I just love it. And, of course, the third revelation in it is just as powerful as the other two; little Hera surges back into significance not only by being abducted, but by producing the exact notes needed to complete the melody of the tune itself.

I like how Brad Templeton ties this together:

…we’ve always known that Starbuck was under the influence of the mysterious string-puller who showed her a vision of Leoben and gave her a destiny. Now that we know the Final Five wake-up wasn’t part of their own plan or Cavil’s, it has to have come from the string-puller, who likes All Along the Watchtower (whether Anders wrote it or not.) And Hera’s been involved in the visions of the Opera House, which are also clearly the work of the string-puller/One-true-god.

I would find it hard to disagree, were I of a mind to do so.

Tying it all together

I noted that Kara accused Slick of being overly sensitive in one scene, which I thought might have been a direct call-out to Ellen Tigh‘s description of the Number Seven model, Daniel, as a “sensitive, artistic” sort. There is, at any rate, some connection between Dreilide Thrace and, at minimum, Samuel Anders (who was earlier identified as the composer of “Watchtower” within the series’ canon).

Could Dreilide have been a copy of the Daniel model? That seems to be the hot property in fan speculation at present, despite the best efforts of the producers to downplay Daniel as being a way to tie this series into the upcoming Caprica spin-off.

Brad Templeton notes:

While we are told to not expect much more of Daniel in this show (though those saying he is Starbuck’s dad got a boost) we should pay attention to the exact wording of what they said about him. When Ellen talks of Daniel, Cavil says, “that seven was…” This suggests there were, at that time, multiple sevens. And Anders, though mumbling words, calls him “the Daniel.” So Daniel might not have been the original #7, though Cavil does seem to have shut down the further duplication of that line.

It’s possible that Daniel the Cylon was named in honour of Daniel Greystone, the computer engineer who was instrumental in the development of the Colonial Cylons. This fact would dovetail rather nicely with the idea that Daniel the Cylon enjoyed some kind of Abel-like favoured status with some or all of the Final Five; it would make sense to name him after someone significant to the very existence of Colonial Cylons in that case. This doesn’t mean that Daniel Greystone was himself — or became, later on — a Cylon, of course.

At present, I’m counting myself amongst the group that suspects that Dreilide was a Daniel-model Cylon. This, in turn, would make Kara a human-Cylon hybrid child…which is perhaps what is being hinted at by the now-established connection between her and Hera. And in a sense, it also follows from what we already know of Kara’s destiny. She is meant to lead the human race to some end, to be their way forward; in like manner, the intermingling of human and Cylon is supposed to be the way forward toward peace.

Also, per the words of the First Hybrid, Kara is supposed to lead the human race to its end, in her role as the harbinger of the apocalypse. A harbinger, properly defined, is “a sign of things to come.” If we consider that what “is to come” is an apocalypse (which, properly defined, actually means revelation — “the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the majority of humankind”), and an end to humanity, could this not mean that what Starbuck is ultimately guiding the fleet toward is the realization of that which she and Hera are examples of: the complete intermixing of human and Cylon, such that the distinction between is forever dissolved?

I’m probably over-extending that speculation, but necessarily so. There would seem to be key utterances in the series against which every speculation must be tested; the sayings of the First Hybrid, the prophecy of Pythia, and the explanation of Starbuck’s destiny are among these. No speculation — as far as I’m concerned — is complete which cannot be demonstrated to satisfy these criteria.

Which brings us back to Pythia

That was a brutal segué, I realize. Bear with me.

Roslin went down at the end of the episode, roughly in time with Hera’s abduction by Boomer. The montage of sequences depicting the chaos in the wake of the Raptor jump causing damage to the Galactica included a shot of a Marine checking her for a pulse and barking something into a radio (there was no dialogue in the shot, though; the soundtrack at that point was a musical cue only). While I doubt that Roslin died in that scene, I’m pretty sure the end just got a lot closer for her; I give it one chance in three that she’ll live through to the end of the next episode, “Islanded in a Stream of Stars.”

Let’s assume, for the moment, that this means she’s the dying leader after all. At the episode’s beginning, we were given a rather amusing plot point dangle: Starbuck, now serving as CAG, gives a mission briefing to “planet hunters” about to be sent out on six-day missions to…well…locate a habitable world for the Fleet to settle on. As noted previously, significant points in prior episodes have a way of getting wrapped up perfunctorily in later episodes, so expect a planet to be discovered soon, probably at the end of the next episode.

Moreover, expect that planet to be our planet, the real Earth.

Michael Hall has been chronicling the constellations seen in every episode of this final half of BSG’s final season, and has yet again concluded that the starfield in the background of the exterior shots of the Fleet matches the starfield as would be seen from basically any point within our own solar system. Granted, there is an objection to be raised against these findings, which Brad Templeton does:

Michael Hall, who has been diligent in finding Earth star patterns in recent episodes, has now found them in too many places, including the Ionian Nebula from the start of season 4 and after jumps from there…Clearly [the graphics dept.] have two modules for doing their backgrounds in post, one for the real solar system stars, another for random stars. They never used the real system stars until season 4, which seemed like a signal, but they’ve used them willy-nilly. While they would not expect most fans to have fancy star pattern matching software, the use of Orion and the Big Dipper did not require this to match.

So we have to seriously reduce the confidence we can make in predictions based on those star patterns.

Then again, this could be deliberate on the part of the graphics team as well; give diligent fans the “tease” of seeing real stars in the background, but also use the same star pattern in another scene to sew a little confusion and doubt. Hall himself noted that the starfield for the Ionian Nebula changed between Season 3 and Season 4, which (to me, at least) suggests just this sort of duplicity.

By the way, as a piece of pure interest, it was explained by Lisa Paitz Spindler in another article’s comments where the title for the next episode was derived from, and what it refers to:

From “Night on the Great Beach” in Henry Beston’s The Outermost House:

“For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in its stream of stars — pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across eternal seas of space and time.”

Which certainly describes the basic plot of BSG in a rather poetic way, doesn’t it?

Also, a funny reflection from Battlestar Wiki on the “reward” Starbuck offers to the first person who successfully locates a habitable world:

The brand of “Tauron toothpaste” offered as a prize to the pilots is called “Felgercarb,” a word used in the original series to mean “shit.” Tauron comes from Taurus the bull. In essence, Kara is offering the pilot who finds a new planet “bullshittoothpaste”.

If that constitutes an improvement on the current oral hygiene of Galactica’s pilots, that’s not a problem that mere toothpaste can solve.

Hera, abducted again

So once again, the child of Helo and Sharon Agathon has been captured by the Cylons and whisked away to locations unknown. It would appear that Boomer’s real purpose in springing Ellen out of Cavil’s clutches was to get her in a position from which she could abscond with Hera — Cavil obviously wants this human-Cylon hybrid child so dearly that he was willing to sacrifice possession of one of the Final Five in order to get his hands on her.

That’s not speculation, mind you, good reader.

The question becomes what purpose Cavil has in kidnapping Hera, and quite frankly I can’t think what his interest might be other than to kill her; she represents very powerful evidence against his assertion that even the humanoid Cylons are nothing more than machines, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he regarded her as a threat of the worst order.

The one lingering question I have is why Hera didn’t protest when she was taken. Granted, Boomer didn’t give her more than a few seconds before she shoved the sedative-drink into Hera’s mouth, but even still…it was previously established that Hera can tell Athena apart from Boomer, and it seems curious that she didn’t scream in protest the minute Boomer laid a hand on her.

Boomer is apparently a total bitch now

She lies to Tyrol, manipulates his already shattered emotions by concocting that fantasy projection of their life together as a married couple and as parents, and uses that to motivate him to betray the Fleet and the trust of William Adama in order to secure her release from the brig. Then, as an added measure of pettiness, she doesn’t just stop at impersonating Athena, but even goes so far as to arrange a sexual tryst with Helo such that Athena can see every intimate moment thereof.

(Helo, not being a Cylon, apparently can’t tell Boomer from Sharon.)

The only thing I don’t get, which Brad Templeton also wonders about, is what Tyrol — who obviously knew that it was Boomer, not Athena, getting on to that Raptor at the episode’s end — thought could be achieved by giving Boomer a ship and shooting her off into space? He’s “the Chief” — he should know, better than most, just how little air there actually is in a Raptor’s reserves. Did he have any idea what Boomer was going to do, or where she was going to go, once she escaped? Given his rekindled love and passion for her, I can’t see him letting her simply jump away on a suicide run.

A note on jump drives

Speaking of jumping away, where did this notion of a jump wake come from? We’ve seen a lot of other examples of close-range jumps being made, seemingly with little ill effect to other nearby ships, so why now (all of a sudden) is close-range jumping dangerous?

One thing I did think was interesting, and which kind of serves to bookend the series (or, at least, Boomer’s role therein), was that the damage from Boomer’s close-range jump happened to approximately the same section of the Galactica‘s hull as did the damage caused by her sabotage of the ship’s water tanks way back in the first season.

Galactica is ready to snap in half

So we’ve got a countdown now; Galactica can only make a handful of additional jumps before she falls apart around her crew and passengers; the Cylon resin will buy her only a little more time after all. This underscores the need to find a habitable world; it is probable that other ships in the Fleet are similarly close to failure, for one…and even if not, they’d be the next best things to sitting ducks without the battlestar accompanying them.

Whether voluntarily or involuntarily, the journey is coming to an end. One expects that it will arrive there very quickly indeed.

Indeed, I’m half expecting to see the Galactica emerge from its next jump as a shattered hulk.

Anders’ brain activity

This scene felt a bit too obvious, especially with the comment by a random Number Eight-model Cylon that something might be achieved by plugging Sam into “the datastream.” The one possible way I could see the writers coming up with a way to circumvent the otherwise seemingly inevitable end facing the Galactica is if Anders were to somehow become the ship’s hybrid, a la Homeworld.

Actually, this plot development would work on a few levels — it would add to the idea of blending that has become the show’s focus, and it might even give the writers a way out of the corner they’ve backed the Galactica into; perhaps the Cylon goo needs a Hybrid to stabilize and manage it in order to work to its fullest potential. It would also explain what the First Hybrid was getting at when it spoke of its own rebirth “in ways uncertain.”

What is “the miracle” to which Anders was referring?

I keep tossing this idea around, and while I’m tempted to think that it might have been a reference to Anders’ own rebirth, I think it instead points to the show’s end, to the culmination of the plot. I still maintain that the show has a very eschatological end coming up, and I think “the miracle” leads into that in some way.

This notion of blending is all well and good, but it also has its limits (at least in the purely “natural” realm). On both sides, there are deep and powerful hatreds between Cylon and human. In isolated incidents, and to increasing degrees based on need, both sides might be willing to tolerate certain forms of intermixing…but not to the point of forever setting down arms and walking forward into the future, hand in hand as one society.

Something — perhaps even something that strains the limits of “the natural” — needs to happen to complete that unification, if that is where the series means to end up. Could this be what the miracle entails?

What we didn’t see

Oddly, there was no follow-up done on Gauis Baltar and his newly-armed cult. While all the various little hints and indicators I’ve seen point toward him wanting to establish his people as the de facto civilian security force on board the Galactica, I can’t help but think there’s more to it than just policing.

But that’s evidently for another episode. Probably for the finalé, in fact.

The other curious thing was the discussion Helo was having with another pilot in the ready room, apparently while watching gun camera footage. Michael Hall notes that while this was recycled footage (from “Scar,” I think), it could have been thrown in as a clue of some kind.

In recent podcasts, Ron Moore has spoken of the story having elements that take place “off camera” which are only occasionally hinted at; could the Fleet have had a few dust-ups with Cylon Raiders that we simply haven’t seen? That would support the theory that Cavil knows where the Fleet is and is deliberately holding off from wiping them out.

And, no doubt, it foreshadows the promised effects extravaganza that the series finalé is supposed to contain.

By the twisted snake-rod of Asclepius! (Update): While I’ve mostly disagreed with blogger Radii’s take on the last half of the season thus far (he’s been very down on it), I absolutely love his speculation as to the direction the finalé will take.

Go thou and read it in its entirety, good reader.