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The most horrible thing about Dee's death, is how realistic it is. The way she does a 180 and suddenly seems fine and happy after a period where they have been struggling a lot is a massive red flag, as it is a sign, they've crossed the threshold and have accepted their impending death, that their happiness is knowing they're going to escape whatever is trapping them and that they're having one final good day, ending it on a high note. It's even worse when you don't fully comprehend what they're going through, that you don't catch the small signs of the things eating away at them, and their last day comes about and then you find out the full truth afterwards.
Yep, and that is one of the reasons so many family and friends describe suicides as "unexpected". That sudden sense of calmness and contentment in someone who had been struggling is something that goes missed, because people frequently interpret it as the person doing better or being okay.... when in reality it is a massive red flag for an impending suicide.
Dee's death was completely shocking when it first aired. Since I've seen the episode again? There is the smallest hint when Dee and Helo are in the front of the shuttle, when she is freaking out and Helo tries to tell her to keep it together, her eyes go completely dead, like she's dead inside. Such a great and subtle acting moment from Kandyse McClure there. Everything she did when she got back on the ship, I feel like was her trying to have a 'perfect day' on her way out the door.
She was never going to be happier than she was right then. She wanted to go out on a high, thinking that he life was essentially over. No hope, no future, nothing. Such a shocking moment, but such good TV.
It is one of my favourite episodes of the series. Everything falls apart; the dream of Earth dies. The dream they were chasing turned out to be a nightmare. Colonial civilization finally dies in this episode in a quiet death rattle and everyone confronts it in their own way. Typically stoic and strong characters have lost hope. Adama wants to die. And the one person who pulls Adama and in turn the Fleet together is Tigh.
Regarding your question about Adama's speech: he was talking about Kobol. In the ancient past, Kobol was devastated and the 13 tribes were forced to flee into space. Eventually they found new homes (the Twelve Colonies for the 12 human tribes, and Earth for the thirteenth tribe of Cylons). Adama is saying that the Colonials and rebel Cylons are now in the same position their ancestors were in those many millennia ago. Just like their ancestors were successful, Adama is promising to lead the Fleet to a new home.
Interesting reaction to the fifth cylon reveal. I remember when it first aired, my immediate reaction was, "oh, of COURSE it's Ellen!" I think Kara was always a red herring because of how often they leaned into her being the fifth, so I never really thought she would be the fifth. That left things far more interesting for what her story could be. Meanwhile, Ellen felt so appropriate because, regardless about how I felt about her, it was always so clear that she and Tigh care so deeply for one another that it felt right that their history would go back even further than we thought. Frakked up as it may be, you could argue that have one of the strongest relationships in the show. So, yeah, for me, it felt right that the fifth would Ellen. No one else felt as plausible as a choice.
Up to this point, I think the biggest gut punch was at the end of Exodus pt. 2, with the tandem of Ellen not making it back, Casey not being Cara's child, and just the blend of victory and triumph mixed with trauma, sadness and loss. This episode somehow manages to take it up a notch. I got emotional watching it with you.
I can still remember the 2008 writer's strike... the show went on hiatus before the strike started and production on the back-half was delayed and at the time there was a serious question of whether the last batch of episodes would get made. I saw an interview with either RDM or David Eick as they were on the picket line (can't remember which), and they were asked if the show was coming back. There response was along the lines of "Of course; we haven't killed everyone off yet." We all thought they were joking until this episode aired.
Dee's death is tragic... and sudden... and it makes sense in all the ways that would make sense to Dee. Nobody truly knows what we're all going through. Robin Williams might be the perfect example of that. People are all going through their own private agonies regardless of fame, wealth, race, sex, nationality, etc. Candice McClure played Dee with so much beauty, grace, intelligence, empathy, and gravitas. Her death was such a shock. She deserved so much more than the tragedy of her home colony, her bad marriage with Lee, and the final let down of the dream of Earth dissolving into radioactive ash. Dee was a constant comforting presence on the Battlestar Galactica.
Not spoilers, but clarification of the Kobol/Colonies/Earth story known so far: Life, as far as they understand, began on Kobol. They lived there with the gods (whatever that means). Something happened, and the people of Kobol fled, leaving the planet behind as a cursed wasteland. That was long enough ago that by the time they return to Kobol in the series, most of the ruins have been completely overtaken by plant life and there's very little left visible of the Kobol civilization. Most of the people who fled Kobol founded the 12 colonies. The story was recorded in the sacred scrolls. Enough time passes that the story in the scrolls becomes more myth than history. Knowledge that Kobol is definitely a real place is lost, which is why they're surprised when they stumble upon Kobol at the end of season 1. Also recorded in the scrolls is the fact that there was a group of people from Kobol who went a different direction, starting a 13th colony called Earth. That's the planet they have now found. And what they see in this episode is that all humanoid life on the planet is cyclon. There are no humans. This strongly implies that there were humans and cylons on Kobol, with the humans starting a new home on the 12 Colonies and the cylons starting a new home on Earth. Presumably, the same long period of time passes on Earth as it did on the 12 Colonies, so the cylons on Earth would have been there for a long time before the nuclear detonations that took place 2,000 years ago.
Based on what we saw in the show so far the following has happened: The humans from Kobol have created there own version o Cylons. There was a war that devated Kobol. Only 13 tribes (12 human tribes and 1 cylon tribe) survived. The cylon tribe was the first to leave Kobol and eventually settle on Earth. The remaining 12 tribes left later and settle the 12 colonies togueter. All this has happened 4000+ years in the past. Eventually most of knowloged regarding this event was lost since the tribes started from scrach on the new planets. What little info remained became myths and legends.
Quite a deep episode. She came from Saggitaron, a colony dominated by fundamentalists with a pacifist and somewhat retrograde tone, which fomented a form of racism toward them. Things just got worse during the First Cylon War, when the saggitarons refused to enlist due to their pacifist ways. Dee has been under extremes since the beginning, with no quarrels. She was strong, but even strong people can reach their limits and fall. Lost their loved ones at the Second Cylon War (The Fall of the Colonies) - she had a fight with her father three weeks before the Attack of the Colonies because he didn't want her to enlist the Colonial Fleet; accidentally lost the Olympic Carrier at 33 due to obvious lack of necessary sleep (apparently she was responsible to communicate jump cords to the fleet); saw Billy's demise while flirting with Lee due to a domestic terrorist act; had a very, very bad marriage with Lee since he was still in a toxic rogue love relationship with Kara; thing got worse when Lee decided to defend Baltar in his trial, finishing their relationship... After Adama's speech about Earth, deep in her heart, she must have believed it would be some sort of divine sign since Earth was mentioned by their most worshiped sacred scrolls. But when the pursuit brought them to a tomb world, her last drop of hope vanished into a deep, soul-devouring depression, which tragically led her to her demise by her own hands, to end her suffering. I cried when I saw this episode because I knew people who behaved in a similar pattern having similar results. This episode is also a warning. Appearances are deceiving. A smiley face may be hiding deep suffering. We must keep in touch with family and friends and learn to recognize when such dangerous pattern appears among them.
Dee was the one so many others counted on. Lee, obviously. The Admiral, I remember when Dee talked him into reuniting the fleet a couple seasons ago. She was so many people's bedrock, but all her own bedrock was eroded away by trying to hang on to what she could but then there was no place for her to land. Sadly inevitable, and no amount of bright-siding could have stopped it. No amount of pep talks or encouragement or tough love would have stopped it. She was hollowed out by the "Earth" reveal. Similar in effect but not scale to D'anna - she was equally hollowed out by circumstance, and the only thing lacking was a handy firearm. Tigh and Adama, there's no choosing. They had to deal with the emotions the only way they know how. They're not sensitive or touchy-feely or capable of the kind of "just choose to live" denial the platitudes call for. They have to hit bottom and either bounce back or crash into pieces, maybe both. Gutwrenching episode, but all inevitable in its narrative.
I didn’t think they could pull any bigger shocks after the way the previous episode ended… this episode proved me wrong. And it just gets crazier from here on out. As for Kara and what she is… 🤔😅🤭
Once you get to the end of the series, and you're filled with sadness, I would highly recommend listening to Battlestar Galacticast. It's a podcast done by Tricia Helfer (who plays Six) and a guy called Mark Bernarden. They go through each episode chatting about it, often with other actors from the show. It's great!
Watching you makes me realize once again how much I was excited and surprised and thrilled and how I also suffered when I first watched this fantastic phenomenal series...
Ellen being the final of the final five was a very deliberate choice, knowing how the rest of this arc plays out and parsing out the thematic relevance of these characters and observing the evolution of how the character of Ellen is written
Idk if anyone already said this, but I find it all the more tragic that Adama says “what did you do” afterwards and you know it’s because he blames himself. EJO is a powerhouse and deserves much more critical acclaim a wonderful person to meet in-person as well.
When the show was airing season 4, they gave us clues as to who the final cylon would be. One clue they gave us was this iconic poster of characters sitting around a table and they said that the final cylon was NOT in that picture, and because Starbuck (and other characters) we're in that picture, most people already had inclinations that Kara was not a cylon. Obviously, not everything production says is true but there really was no reason to lie about something like that.
Carmen: "I think that from the place they're in now that they could actually have a healthy relationship. So I'm here for this." Me: "You poor sweet child, I'm so sorry." 🤣And as others mentioned, she was happy because she knew she could finally let go of everything. Sad. The "Ellen" storyline is definitely interesting moving forward. Won't say anymore.
Spoiler comment…. Ellen being the Fifth is such a simple answer to the question of who the final cylon was. It’s a huge strength of this show that I feel some general audiences get frustrated about, sometimes the buildup doesn’t lead to some Earth shattering revelation and it was in front of your nose the whole time.
This "Earth" was much heavily bombarded by nukes than Caprica was . On certain places on Caprica you could survive, like the places that the residence against the Cylons used , and the "clinics" that the Cylons opened up to experiment on human women . Kobol was also totally evacuated, so the radiation there must have been pretty bad as well, but both Kobol and Caprica had significant survivors. This "Earth" in this episode had practically no survivors, except for the Final Five .
Dee's final scene is brutal, and one of the cruelest misdirects I've ever seen in a TV series. I watched this episode when it first aired and, even years and multiple rewatches later, it still fucking hurts. Like Carmen, I too had that same hope that Dee and Apollo's relationship might rekindle and move forward to a better place than where it left off, only to have the rug viciously pulled out from under me, leaving me feeling faintly depressed the next day. As emotionally devastating as it was, her death felt a little cheap to me because it seemed like the show runners had no idea what to do with Dee's character anymore, so death was their easy out. And I have to agree with Carmen that the big Ellen reveal felt a little anticlimactic.
Either my memory is screwed up, or they originally aired a very different cut. On Earth, they found a centurion faceplate, causing a Six to remark that Cylons had never found Earth. Meanwhile, in an epilogue in one episode, we see Ellen Tigh wake up in a resurrection tank guarded by centurions; & it's clear she has her full memories! There was *no* flashback of Tigh finding Ellen on Earth. It was always going to be problematic that the fleet was going to an inhabited planet. The scenario in my mind was Earth defending itself from alien invaders! It never occurred to me that the planet would be dead. Stay tuned. Ellen will fill us in with missing pieces.
You have already heard it being said that Kara Thrace is the Harbinger of Death, who will lead the human race to its end. And if you look back a few episodes (to Maelstrom), there may be a suggestion of some kind of link between Kara and Aurora, the Goddess of Dawn. (Note, that this is not a spoiler, because no such link is directly referred to in the show.)
When you get chance, go back and review Gaeta's "My three wishes..." lament. I know it's out of canon sequence, but I think it serves as a lament and foreshadow of this heartbreak. "Dark and laughing rain" - a cruel irony. I can readily see Gaeta having feelings for D, but knowing he never stood a chance with her. There is a deleted scene of the 2 of them granting a glimpse of their camaraderie, getting the giggles over the prospect of Adama and Roslin unavailable in his quarters possibly "getting busy."
Deana never let Earth because after this episode was the other writers strike and the show was put on hold. She had to work and got another job so left the show.
I’m not sure I understand why you still would think Kara was a cylon. I knew she wasn’t when the Toasters turned back when they faced Sam in battle. They faced Kara a zillion times in battle and never were like oops I can’t that is one of the final 5, my family. Nope. So I stopped thinking she was a final five. You will see and be blown away so enjoy.
You're dealing with someone who doesn't know how to watch this show. She spent all last season going out of her way to defend the morally reprehensible Baltar as if 3 seasons of what a shitbag he is hadn't just been beamed into her eyes. It figures she'd fixate on Kara nonsensically. Just go watch another reactor tbh.
@jennym2276 They all would've faced toasters before that moment. The difference is that they had been "switched on" in that episode. So it's not unreasonable to think she might've still been the fifth cylon. Of course, now it's clear that it's Ellen.
@@jameshubbard7842 Setting aside the fact you should just be more respectful toward Carmen, I'd argue that if anyone is missing the point of Baltar it's you. The show has *very* clearly telegraphed a complex redemption arc for his character. He's incredibly flawed-just like every other character on the show. But, along with those "morally reprehensible" qualities, the show has also gone out of its way to humanize him every step of the way. You don't have to like it, but it's clearly how the writers want him to be understood, and Carmen's reactions have been pretty much exactly what they seemed to aim for.
Faith 4x06 got striked into oblivion? It's gone and given how choppy you had to make it anyway I wondered whose call that was. Really appreciate how half your reaction videos are reviews and breakdowns. Even with all the ummms and hmmms, silent moments, me disagreeing with you at times, etc. Baltar can spontaneously combust and I'll be a happy camper, for example. Question, are you planning on making a big overall review of the show once you're done with it? Hindsight will put a lot in perspective, and it'll give you a chance to revisit or add to some of your previous thoughts. I'd even take a strictly reviews playlist, lol.
When you re-watch this episode with hindsight, you can see where Dee loses hope and gives up, and when she decided to have one last good time and go out on a high note. Sadly, there are too many people who do the same thing in real life. Just like "Crossroads, part 2" did not intend to leave any doubt about the four Cylons revealed there, this episode did not intend to leave any doubt about Ellen being the fifth. As it originally aired, it was followed by a promo for the next episode which started with a narrator saying "Revealing the last Cylon is just the beginning...", as much more would be revealed over the rest of the season. This also means that I can now, without being a spoiler, definitively say that Kara is NOT a Cylon. There are only twelve models, and they are now all accounted for. The "Who's a Cylon" phase of this show is over. What does this mean for Kara? She is not a Cylon, but I can give you no further answers without being a spoiler.
@@guyvanooteghem8531 They were clear from the beginning that there exactly 12 Cylon models, which are now all accounted for. Therefore, everyone else, including Kara, is not a Cylon. This would have been a spoiler before this episode, but it is not now. As the show originally aired, creator Ron Moore did podcasts after each episode, and answered a lot of these questions about what they had intended to definitively reveal and where they intended to still have things unresolved. With both the reveal of four Cylons at the end of season 3 and the reveal of Ellen as the final Cylon in this episode, he seemed surprised that people still questioned if they were really Cylons after the respective episodes, saying what I have paraphrased here: that it wasn't their intention to leave any doubt. He also reconfirmed once more after this episode that they were still committed to the 12 Cylon limit. When asked about Kara, he said at that time exactly what I have said here: we now know that she isn't a Cylon, but I cannot tell you anything else at this point. I had a lot of these same conversations with people on the sci-fi forum at the time, except that no one would have called me a "spoiler" at that time because I had not seen any further episodes myself yet. In more extreme examples, some people went on and on about theories that the season 2 ending ("one year later" on New Caprica) or the discovery of the devastation on Earth were just dream sequences. Yes, there is potential to surprise, but at some point you have to accept the base premise of the show. Anything that which was intended to be known at this point was intended to be known at this point, and is not a spoiler.
@@jeremykraenzlein5975 You seem to define 'spoiler' from your personal point of view, and in hindsight but apparently with erroneous memory. It has been established that there are 12 Cylon models. At this point in the show only eleven are accounted for. There is a model that is not yet known. Edit: sorry, 12 models are accounted for, not 11 as I said, but that's not really the point. There is a good reason to think there is another model that is not yet known.
@@guyvanooteghem8531 This is the reaction for "Sometimes a Great Notion". Ellen is revealed as the final Cylon in this episode. There were people on the online forum who refused to accept it at this point, just as there were some who refused to accept the four revealed at the end of season 3. But there is no later "aha!" moment, this episode was the reveal. Ellen as the final Cylon is treated as an already known and established fact in subsequent episodes, because it was revealed here.
@@jeremykraenzlein5975 You're still missing the point. Even with Ellen there is yet another Cylon not revealed at this point. So Starbuck could possibly be a Cylon.
Starbuck revealed as a Cylon? Nope. Lee and Dee having a healthy relationship? Nope. Makes you wonder though, if Helo killed Athena so she coulda rescue Hera, why haven't we seen a resurrected Ellen when she died on New Caprica? Surely others would have seen her and known right away she was one of the Five.
So much for Lee and Dee having a healthy relationship, eh? This episode alone stands out as one of the poorest writing in the series. The Cylons were created by Graystone Industries, on Caprica (if you use the Caprica series as a reference point) and are mechanical in nature. If you use the OG series as your reference, they're still mechanical and created by a reptilian race, called Cylons. The idea that the Final Five could have been around at least 2,000 years ago, created the other 7 or 8 models, and then in turn created the mechanical Centurions and Raiders, is absurd. This is what happens when you try re-imagine a beloved series to try make it more modern. Ask yourself this: If Ellen is the 5th Cylon, why hasn't she downloaded yet, when Sharon did right away when she went to go get Hera?
Maybe she has, & they just haven't shown it, yet. This episode doesn't contradict anything. It adds texture. Yes, the modern incarceration of Cylons began with Greystone Industries, of Caprica. Robots who had no reason to fear networked computers or nanotechnology, unlike the humans, who'd had the Cylons turn those technologies against them. Robots whose experiments with human captives produced the cybernetic hybrids. All of this says nothing about what really happened on Kolbol, or who the "gods" were in Colonial lore. If the Kolbolians were advanced enough to colonize other star systems, then they were advanced enough for robotics. The mistake this show makes is calling the artificial lifeforms from Earth Cylons. It's logical the 4/5 would think they are, since only partial memories have surfaced. It's logical the Humanoids would believe they are, since somehow their knowledge of the Five got deleted. Doesn't mean the displaced Earthlings ever called themselves that while flying toward the Colonies.
In this BG universe "Cylons" is referring to the AI created creatures by the humans. You are basically looking at a Technology driven "convergent evolution". That is Humans keep creating Cylons. In the re-imagined mythos it is first done by Humans on Kobol. There is conflict that destroys Kobol, the humanoid Cylons and humans flee, the humans to found the 12 colonies and the humanoid cylons to Earth. The humanoid cylons on Earth themselves effective become close to biological reproducing rather than rebuilding. [SPOILERS! STOP IF YOU DON't WANT TO KNOW] They themselves [the humanoid Earth cylons] eventually build robot AI centurians of their own who rise up in confluct destroying Earth, the final five escape via Ellen having rediscovered the ability to grow and upload into new bodies. They flee to the 12 colonies, but lacking FTL capability they have to travel at relativistic speeds and it takes them millenia to reach the colonies..... but by the time they get there the humans had already created their own centurian cylons and were embroiled in conflct with them. The final five (really aren't "final", they are the progenitors of the humanoid caprican cylons, so could be better called the "first five" rather than the final) find the caprican cylons and figure to help by making humanoid cylons of them. This backfires when the Number 1's the first created manage to convince the other humanoid models to resist the final five, to escape they have all their memories wiped except ellen and flee to the colonies to hide. The re-imagined series is one of repetition of story. The humanoids create servile sentient AI...... the servile sentient AI rises up against their creators, and the confluct destroys their world. That is what happened on Kobol, what happened on Earth, and what happened on the 12 colonies.... and as we find at the end it is what could happen on our Earth as well populated by us... who in the context of the re-imagined series are actually human/cylon hybrids and not pure humans.
