Friday ’s instalment of Battlestar Galactica was essentially just one jumbo exposition , a massive pile of answers about the Final Five . But it left us enquire whether this show ever really had a plan . Spoilers ahead !
Of naturally no back story could ever really hold up up to the striking anatomy - up of four season . For years we ’ve wondered why the cylons go ( literally ) ballistic , and what that had to do with chiliad of yr of human / cylon conflict and galactic diaspora . And at last , in the instalment “ No Exit , ” Anders ’ mind harm unleashes a overflow of memories that explicate what the Final Five were all about .
As Starbuck and the terminal four cylons mind , Anders moves between mega - exposition and brain - injury babble reminiscent of hybrid speak . It twist out the final five worked together at a companionship on Earth where Ellen rediscovers the ancient cylon technology of resurrection . Apparently the tech had been forgotten on Earth because cylons could reproduce naturally , but Ellen and her crew are disquieted about an apocalypse ( which they get wind about from some puppet nobody can see except them – though the apocalypse itself is still never explicate ) and so they lay up a style to download themselves to a Resurrection Ship when Earth nukes itself . OK , that help explicate the Earth backstory .
Then things get even weirder . It turns out that the Final Five spent 100 move across the Galax urceolata to find the twelve dependency and admonish them to treat their AIs well or they ’d be the victims of a fearful cylon uprising . When they arrive , the centurion rebellion has already pass off and the five bang a bargain with the centurions to prevent more gore . They ’ll make 8 humanoid cylon models for the centurion , which twist out to be the skinjobs we know and love ( minus a new , mysterious Number Seven call off Daniel who was a “ sensitive creative person ” ) . Apparently the centurions , like the final five , believe in “ one true God ” who create humans in his figure of speech . To honour this God , they need nothing more than brethren who look like the God - create humans they ’ve been slay . ( Um , yeah . )
At this point , Anders ’ expounding in the sequence is intercut with even more exposition from an Ellen model who has been awakened from the gook by Cavil . It turn over out that Cavil was the first humanoid simulation Ellen created for the centurion , and he has some serious mommy issues with her . ( Having sexual urge with her back on New Caprica is just the tip of the iceberg for our freaky Oedipal skinjob . ) As you’re able to see in the clip above , Cavil is angry that Ellen imposed her thought of God on his body . He wants to be a simple machine , to fully embrace his identity as a non - human . Plus , he ’s angry that Ellen made him in the simulacrum of her father John ( she call him John , too ) . And he ’s jealous of Ellen ’s other cylon children , particularly Daniel , whom he destroy long ago .
In many room , this episode change by reversal Cavil into the Big Bad of the series , which call false . Apparently Cavil grew so angered at Ellen and the rest of the Final Five that he had their retention erased and dropped them onto Caprica so that they could determine a moral about how lame these allegedly God - made world are . ( This BARELY makes horse sense , present Tigh ’s long history with Adama – one is still left inquire how the Final Five were dropped to Caprica at unlike points . ) It also seems as if Cavil wipe off memories of the Final Five from all the skinjob good example except his own .
What this think of is that the destruction of the colonies , the cylon slave uprising , and the whole cylon vendetta against the world , is basically the termination of an atheist Logos being pissed at the way his religious mother imposed her beliefs on him . We ’ve gone from warrant the cylon ’s crashing war with a ( somewhat understandable ) pursuance for vengeance to justifying it by saying it was all the result of a sadistic , power - athirst mama ’s male child mindwiping everybody and turn them into his warfare puppets .
I believe this is a big error . sour the whole human / cylon conflict into the brainwash - enable creation of one furious cylon really drain a draw of the interesting politics out of this show . If we take the Cavil backstory at facial expression value , the show becomes a Dallas - fashion family melodrama instead of a political epic about clash between colonizer / colonized and slaver / slave . I know what you ’re thinking : Why ca n’t it be both , ala Dune , surely an excellent good example of family melodrama that ’s inextricably linked to geopolitical strife ? I perfectly think BSG can be both , but “ No Exit ” did a pretty clumsy job of take the two together . It was as if the Cavil / Ellen conflict pass over away the larger human / cylon fight in this episode , and turned all the social dilemmas we ’ve seen into the unintended issue of Cavil ’s mindwipes .
But we do see speck that broader societal issues are still on the simmer . Adama has made Tyrol into the Chief again , take that sometimes a cylon is the best man for the job . And Tyrol is going to desegregate cylon biotech into Galactica to forestall the ship from falling aside . So human and cylon cultures are being integrated together in a way that has seemingly never pass before .
And Roslin is definitely withdraw from the Presidency : She ’s necessitate Lee to do the “ heavy lifting ” for her in government , and to forgather a new Quorum – perhaps with representatives from each ship , rather than from their abandoned planets . Members of the Fleet will bosom their raw identity as citizen of ships rather than citizens of colonies .
But we still miss some crucial information , so ask more exposition in our Final Five week of BSG . The story of Kobol , the original dependency , remains murky . Based on what Ellen and Anders say , it seems that the human being on Kobol created cylons who rebelled against them the room the centurions did on Caprica . Some of the cylons from that original Kobol dispute fled to Earth and founded their colony . Ellen call ignorance of the temple on Kobol where D’Anna visualise images of the Final Five , and say God must have put their images there .
The family relationship between Cavil and the rest period of the cylons still demand to be explain . How exactly did his mindwipes process ? How did he imbed the last Five on Earth ? How did he get the skinjobs on his side ? Why did he murder the Daniel phone line of cylons ? ( And is Starbuck a genderbent Daniel ? )
And we also do n’t know what ’s going to materialise when Cavil open up Ellen ’s brainiac and tries to yank out the secret to recreating the Resurrection Ship .
My hope as we enter the homestretch is that show creators Ron Moore and David Eick close by research how Battlestar is at last about two group ’ search for social Department of Justice – not about a sadistic niggling boy who blew up the world(s ) because he ’s tempestuous that his body is n’t made of steel .
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