“You and I, right here, right now.” (BSG)
As with the first part of the episode, “Daybreak, Part II” featured a number of flashbacks, although it was not as “flashback heavy” as was “Daybreak, Part I.” This was probably a result of the fact that it was a substantially longer episode, clocking in at 2 hours and 11 minutes (with commercials).
Overally, my feelings about the flashbacks were mixed. They were pocket storylines introduced in the first part of “Daybreak” to give us some backstory details about key characters, and were wrapped up neatly (for the most part) in the finalé. Most of my predictions about what the flashbacks meant, or where they were going, proved to be wrong, incidentally.
But I’ll cover those errors as I cover each flashback, which I intend to do in order. I’ll be using TPR’s episode analysis as my principal resource here, citing their descriptions of each flashback in turn and following up with my thoughts.
Adama’s Flashbacks
Flashback #1:
The cityscape is lit up as it’s evening in Caprica City. Adama and Tigh are at a strip club. Tigh tries to buy a lap dance for forty dollars for Adama, but Adama turns it down. He tells the dancer to keep the money, although he doesn’t want the lap dance. The conversation turns to the one hour that Adama has to do something. Tigh says after that one hour, he’ll be able to retire and not have to deal with the routine of the military and things like midnight watch. As Tigh adds that he could be at the club every night. Ellen turns up with more drinks and says that Adama wouldn’t be at the club every night, because they barely got him there once. She holds up the drink and proposes a toast to retirement. After a moment, Adama seconds the toast and they all drink.
The strip club sequences (yes, there are more than just this one) were mostly superfluous, I thought; they seemed to be an attempt to borrow a visual cue and tone from CSI: Miami, and little else. The revelation that strip clubs exist in the Colonies didn’t come as any kind of surprise; given that prostitution was known to exist, it seems reasonable to expect that other sexually charged businesses also existed.
That doesn’t mean that a depiction thereof was necessary, mind you. Then too, BSG has set a certain standard for explicitness in its depictions of sexuality and nudity, and the shots of the strip club dancers were fairly tame compared to some of the shots we’ve seen of Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, and Katee Sackhoff as the series has progressed.
This scene really didn’t do much for the narrative either. It did clarify that the “just an hour” posting which William Adama was reluctant to accept did have something to do with the military, although exactly what this was remained unclear. It also referenced the more destructive aspects of Saul Tigh and Ellen Tigh’s relationship, especially when booze was involved, although there’s a curiosity that emerges out of the arrival of Ellen with yet more drinks: at the start of the series, Saul and Ellen were estranged, separated (and possibly divorced). Yet in the flashback, which would appear to be set only a handful of weeks prior to the Cylon attack on the Colonies, they are anything but estranged.
Either that, or I am incorrect in my estimation of the period in “history” in which this flashback is set.
Flashback #4:
At the strip club, Adama and Tigh talk some more. Adama asks Tigh if he’d take the job himself and Tigh offhandedly says that he would. Adama wants Tigh to look him in the eye and say it, but Tigh just watches the dancers on stage. Adama says, “I knew it.” He then hits two more shots.
Nothing much gets added here, although we do get a few good yells from Tigh as he watches the dancers. The man really was quite a lecher when his wife was around, wasn’t he?
Flashback #6:
Outside the club, Adama sits on the curb and throws up on his suit. He sits back, looks up at the stars and smiles.
While this does rank as one of the best vomit scenes ever filmed for television, it adds little to the story, apart from establishing something we already knew: Adama’s first love is the service, the ship he’s on…and that in his heart, he needs to be out amongst the stars.
Flashback #9:
Adama is taking a lie detector test. He’s asked if his name is William Adama, which he answers. He asked if he’s an officer in the colonial fleet, which he answers. He’s asked if he’s a Cylon and reluctantly answers. The next question is whether he’s ever taken money from a cash drawer. At that, he gets up and says that the job isn’t worth the money if his word is going to be questioned. He says he’d rather spend what’s left of his career commanding a broken down old ship.
We never do find out what this job is, only that it apparently requires a fair bit of security clearance, and a process of discovery to which Adama is unwilling to subject himself. Ultimately, Adama’s pride in the value of his word saves him here, since it returns him to the deck of the aged battlestar that will prove, in a short while, to be the sole guardian of the last remnants of Colonial humanity.
The only “gotcha” moment in this is the throwback to the “is Adama a Cylon?” question — one wonders at why Adama is reluctant to answer the question at first, especially given his passionate anti-Cylon stance at this point in his life. Could this be setting us up for some kind of revelation in Caprica, or did Ron Moore take one last opportunity to frak with the speculation junkies?
Also: why was “are you a Cylon?” one of the establishing questions for the lie detector test? At that point, the Colonials had no reason to suspect that Cylons had taken on human form.
In Conclusion: the Adama flashbacks really did nothing for us, apart from re-iterating the Admiral’s love of space and the service. The flashbacks lead us up to the scene in which Adama flies the last Viper off of the Galactica, which is a very moving scene in and of itself…but it would have been as moving in the absence of the references to lie detector tests and strip joints, methinks.
How I Was Wrong: I thought that this flashback would have some connection to Zak Adama and/or his death, or that Adama was trying to avoid being the one tasked to oversee the decommissioning of the Galactica. On both counts, I was incorrect.
Roslin’s Flashbacks
Flashback #3:
Sean Ellison arrives for his date with Roslin with flowers in tow. Roslin shows him in and starts pouring some wine. Sean says that the blind date is kind of awkward, but Roslin doesn’t seem to mind. Although, she tells him that she feels like she knows him. He doesn’t say anything. After she hands him his glass of wine, Roslin points out that he was one of her students, which means he’s quite young. He admits that he knew as soon as Marcie mentioned her, but it didn’t say anything. Roslin then says that he knew that she was old enough to be his. He interrupts her and says, “teacher” before she can finish. He says that he graduated “some time ago.” Roslin doesn’t respond, so Sean asks if he should go. Roslin responds that she didn’t tell him to go and they’ll just see what happens. They then take a drink.
Again, there’s not much here. Roslin got set up on a date with a former student, but was at least willing to entertain the possibility of something happening. I suppose it demonstrates a certain adventurous streak on the part of the woman who will, in due season, become President of the Colonies…but it adds very little to the narrative overall.
Flashback #14:
Roslin stands at the vanity in her underwear. Sean calls out to her and asks if she’s okay. She shakes her head, waits a moment and then walks back into the bedroom. Sean is still in bed. Roslin walks up to the bed and says that she had a wonderful evening, but that they won’t be doing “this” again. She says that it had nothing to do with him and there’s nothing he can do. She walks off.In another room, Roslin lights a cigarette and watches as Sean dresses and leaves. Roslin then picks up the phone and makes a call. She informs the other party that she will be joining Mayor Adar on his campaign and will stick with it to the end.
This is the more interesting flashback. It fulfills what has been established thus far regarding the no-longer-mysterious Sean Ellison, although it would have been in keeping with how Battlestar Galactica does things to skip the earlier flashback in favour of just showing this one; the initial greeting could have been left to implication (although we wouldn’t have learned that Sean was a former student of Laura Roslin’s…not that this was an important detail to begin with).
In Conclusion: The thrust of Roslin’s flashbacks seems to be in the last line she speaks in them, in which she commits herself to then-Mayor Adar’s presidential campaign and promises to stick with it to the end. That end comes in the Raptor that she and Adama fly off in, as she looks out over a flock of flamingos and then, moments later, passes away. So while there’s still a lot of narrative “dead space” here, at least these flashbacks actually do give us a bit of additional information about Roslin, and communicate the origins of her commitment to the Colonies and the governance thereof.
Her promise, made on the phone in the wake of a one night stand, took several years and a nuclear holocaust to make good on.
How I Was Wrong: I thought Sean Ellison had some connection to the deaths of Roslin’s sisters and father, perhaps that he’d been the offending drunk driver. In this, I was incorrect; the deaths of those people served instead to establish that Roslin had no connections to her former life on Caprica at the time of the nuclear holocaust, especially once it was realized that President Adar was dead as well.
Lee’s Flashbacks
Flashback #2:
Lee and Kara talk at the dinner table. Lee is talking about politics and voting. Zak walks back in and guesses that Lee is talking politics. Kara calls Lee a nihilistic dreamer, but Zak says that he’s a cynic. He points out that Lee’s views are why he and his father don’t talk. Zak says that his father believes in the system. Lee counters that their father believes in himself and his uniform and if you’re not in “his tiny little bubble, you don’t exist.” Zak then points out that Lee still followed in their father’s footsteps. Lee says he got four years of college from the service and he gave the military four years in return. Zak used that as evidence that Lee is indeed a Cynic. Kara then adds that she’s starting to like Lee.
Here we get the first hints of a spark between Lee Adama and Kara Thrace, and then while her then-fiancé, Zak Adama (Lee’s brother) was still alive. Lee is, as ever, a talker and very contrarian, which Zak evidently disagrees with but which Kara finds intriguing.
Here again, though, is a scene which doesn’t add a lot to the narrative. It establishes that there was latent emotional tension between Lee and Starbuck (initially of a lustful nature) from the moment they first met, but that is something we could largely have inferred from much of the rest of the series and how it depicted their relationship.
Flashback #5:
Kara and Lee help Zak to the couch because he’s quite drunk. Zak can only mumble that he loves them. They manage to get Zak on the couch. Lee says that Zak never could hold his liquor. Kara now wants to do shots with Lee. She walks over and grabs a couple of shot glasses and a bottle.
This flashback mostly serves as a bridge between the dinner table conversation and Kara’s invitation for Lee to have Sex with her on the dinner table, which we seen in a later flashback (below). It really didn’t seem necessary, and didn’t add anything to the narrative.
Flashback #8:
Lee and Kara drink shots. Lee says that she’s “tempting fate.” She says that if she has a fate, then it’s already set and thinking about it isn’t going to make it happen any faster. He counters that thinking about dying while flying is going to make her get scared and start second-guessing herself. She says that thinking about dying doesn’t ever make her scared, but she does get scared. He wants to know what she’s scared of and she says that she’s scared of being forgotten.
This is the flashback that immediately precedes the revelation, through Kara’s working of the FTL console, that when assigned numerical values, the notes to “All Along the Watchtower” give the coordinates for Earth — our Earth. It seems principally a means to work the notion of Starbuck’s destiny into her backstory, and to illustrate her character a little bit more.
The fear of being forgotten kind of foreshadows her eventual disappearance, since those who are still present within the narrative are not, strictly speaking, vulnerable to falling down the memory hole.
Flashback #12:
As they continue to drink, Kara propose “you and I, right here, right now” on the table. She dares him and now he agrees. Kara climbs on the table and Lee leans over her. They kiss. Kara knocks a glass off the table and Zak wakes up long enough to say that “something’s broken.” That ruins the moment. Lee stands up and Lee says that he’d better go. Kara climbs off the table. They walk over by the door and Kara holds out her hand. She says that it was nice to him and they shake hands.
This scene, I think, gives a short but brutally honest snapshot of the whole “Lee and Kara” dynamic that has percolated through BSG’s four seasons: two people inexorably drawn to each other, who have their genuinely fiery moments…but who ultimately, in the end, cannot have or be with each other. Theirs is a tragic romance, one which begins in lust and transforms into love…but which can never find full expression, nor see them end up side by side.
Whether it’s a glass falling to the floor at an inopportune moment, the revelation of a deep betrayal, a fling with Gaius Baltar, a spontaneous marriage in the wake of a passionate one night stand in the desert, or the fulfillment of a destiny, something always comes along to interrupt the “Lee and Kara” dynamic.
And for Starbuck, this must be the case, because her destiny has bound her not to this world and its trappings, but to eternity itself, and freedom from all mortal burdens and attachments. She has to let go of those things which keep her chained to reality — her mother, her father, and her husband. She can never be allowed to be with the one person — Lee Adama — for whom her love would likely overpower the drive to fulfill her destiny.
You can see that tension in their final scene together — Kara wants to stay, even as she admits that she is being called away, in the knowledge that she has fulfilled the purpose set out for her. She disappears — literally — and passes on or ascends to something higher, but it is at best a bittersweet moment for her, because of her love for Lee and how strongly it binds her to the world she came from. Her departure sets up Lee’s final flashback:
Flashback #13:
Lee wakes up on the couch of his apartment. The pigeon is on his coffee table. It looks at him and then it flies out of his apartment.
Does the pigeon represent Kara? In a way, I kind of suspect it does. In the previous episode, we saw Lee trying to chase the pigeon out to drive it away, perhaps even to kill it. But the pigeon stayed; it didn’t fly out of his apartment. Only when he had exhausted himself, only when his rage had passed, did the pigeon depart.
Relationships are sometimes like that. Lee and Kara’s relationship, certainly, was very much like that.
In Conclusion: these flashbacks really hammer home the point about Lee and Kara and the complex nature of their relationship. Of all the flashbacks, these were probably the ones that added the most to the narrative (with one exception), although not all of them were really useful or necessary.
How I Was Wrong: I was sure that the pigeon, and Lee’s drunken state, had something to do with Zak’s death. This was not the case.
Anders’ Flashback
This was actually a repeat of Samuel Anders‘ flashback from the previous episode, in which he again muses on the nature of perfection and his desire to experience it. It is immediately followed by a shot of Anders piloting the Fleet toward the Sun.
In Conclusion: I suppose we can take this flashback’s placement to mean that Sam has finally achieved the perfection he has been seeking after all along — secure in that knowledge and achievement, the time for him to depart his mortal existence has come.
How I Was Wrong: I thought that his thirst for perfection would play a much bigger role in the battle sequence. This really didn’t pan out.
Tigh’s Flashback
This is a scene that is piggybacked onto the sequence of Adama-related flashbacks, but is a standalone scene in the strip club between Saul and Ellen.
Flashback #11:
Tigh and Ellen talk at the strip club. Ellen asks where Bill is and Tigh says he’s in the bathroom. Ellen asks him to buy her some drinks. Ellen is happy to celebrate his impending retirement. She says that all she’s ever wanted is to for them to be together all the time rather than just brief periods like weekend liberties and two weeks leave a year. She says that it didn’t matter where they were as long as they were together. They toast, take a drink and hug.
This would appear to suggest a motive behind Ellen’s promiscuity and infidelity. Not that such things can be excused by explaining that deep down, one really just misses one’s spouse. But it does serve to establish that these two, the eternal lovers of the narrative, are somehow drawn together in ways perhaps beyond their complete understanding, ways that simply cannot be satisfied by arrangements which must make compromises with a job, held by one of them, that necessarily separates them for lengthy spans of time.
Ellen’s infidelities, many though they were, were first and foremost an attempt to fill in that gap, that longing. Not surprisingly, those attempts left her empty, as sin always does.
This flashback precedes a scene in which the two lovers hug, embracing both each other and their new life together on Earth, finally free of the trappings of military service and shore leave. Finally, the feisty Tighs have peace, and each other.
Boomer’s Flashback
Flashback #7:
In Adama’s quarters, Tigh and Adama point out that Boomer missed the trap seven times in two days. Adama says that she’s washed out according to the regs. Tigh says that it’s time to look for a new career. Boomer wants to know what Adama wants her to do. Adama says that he wants her to land her bird without “digging holes in my deck.” He wants her to be a pilot, respect the uniform, take it seriously and stop letting her personal life get in the way. He says that he’s read her file and he knows that she has no family and that the service is all she has. Adama continues that she’s about to lose that because she’s wrapped up in survivor’s guilt. Adama tells her that Galactica has a lot of ghosts on it and that she doesn’t need to drag them into the cockpit with her. Boomer indicates that she understands although Adama doesn’t think she does, just yet. Adama gives her one last shot to “make the trap tomorrow.” Boomer says that she owes him one. He says that she’s not the only one, but most never pay back especially those that “owe you their lives.” Tigh can be heard snickering. Boomer says that she will pay him back when it really means something.
This flashback retroactively establishes a connection and obligation which existed between Sharon Valeri and Adama. Understanding this commitment, and the genuine favour that Adama did for Boomer, makes the magnitude of her eventual betrayal of him that much more profound, and of course also sets up Boomer’s final change of heart and her return of Hera Agathon to her family.
And just as Adama’s favour to Boomer prevented her, essentially, from throwing away her life, her repayment of that favour ends with her own life coming to a (sudden, violent) end.
This flashback was kind of a retcon, but it worked, and it added a little more meaning to Boomer’s character, and to the end of her character arc.
Baltar’s Flashback
Flashback #15:
Baltar and Caprica Six meet in the park in Caprica City as seen in the miniseries before the Cylon attacks. Caprica greets Baltar and then then start walking. Baltar says that he’s secured access to the defense mainframe for her. She says that her employers will be grateful. He says that he doesn’t care about them because he’s doing it for her and wants to know how it makes her feel. She says she’d be “very grateful.” He says that he’ll put that to the test because if anyone finds out, he’s as good as dead so he’s counting on her discretion. He then makes a crack about “the things men do for love.” Caprica reacts to his use of the word “love” and Baltar covers himself by saying, “You know what I mean.” He puts his glasses back on and they continue walking as she laughs.
This flashback immediately precedes what I thought was the most emotionally stirring scene in the episode:
Back on Earth, Caprica Six and Baltar start to walk off and he says that he spotted some terrain that is good for cultivation. He then adds that he knows about farming as he starts to cry. Caprica says that she knows he does. She then kisses him. They then start walking off.
Some have argued that the revelation that Baltar was aware that granting Caprica Six access to the defence mainframe in full knowledge that she was an agent for her “employers” (though he didn’t know who those “employers” really were), and in full knowledge that he could get into serious trouble for granting her that access, undermines his character’s redemption and transformation — finally! — into someone who can act with selflessness and humility.
Personally, I think it strengthens the case for his redemption, and for Caprica Six’s redemption as well. It reminds us of where both characters were at when the series began: Baltar was a prideful, lustful man who was only ever looking for his next opportunity to bed a pretty woman, while using his brilliance to garner accolades for himself; Caprica Six was a duplicitous saboteur, setting up the downfall and genocide of humanity. Both characters had, at their cores, a kind of lifelessness.
And yet, at the end, both characters have been transformed by their circumstances into people who appreciate and affirm life.
Baltar is no longer prideful — he is humble. He is no longer lustful — he is supportive and loving. He is no longer seeking after accolades for his brilliance — he just wants to work with the soil.
Caprica Six is no longer duplicitous — she is honest. She has learned the full magnitude of the hurt she has caused others — her murder of a baby in the miniseries has been repayed with the loss of her own child, and her participation in the genocide of humanity has been repayed with her own participation in the extermination of the vast majority of her own people.
And for both characters, “love” is no longer a means to an end, but an end in and of itself.
In Conclusion: for me, this was the flashback that was most significant, and the most poignant. It also did the most for connecting the end of the series with its beginning, I thought. And it did a wonderful job indeed of establishing just what sort of redemption both Baltar and Caprica Six had undergone, and where it had brought them to.
How I Was Wrong: I thought for sure that Julius Baltar was somehow more significant than he turned out to be. What was ultimately significant was Baltar’s heritage as the child of a simple farmer, rather than the old farmer himself.
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