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BSG Discussion Thread — Episode 3.9 “Unfinished Business”

zuzu

Take it away, BSG fans.

Don’t you wish there were more male-female fights so that the whole “Starbuck is a special case, even though this is a gender-neutral universe” thing didn’t pertain?

Does Kat have the Fleet’s most annoying voice, even when her hair is straightened and she’s otherwise unrecognizable?

And also: Was Adama such a damn buzzkill because he ran out of his stash?

Discuss.

23 thoughts on BSG Discussion Thread — Episode 3.9 “Unfinished Business”

  1. I’m wondering what other people think about the whole Adama/President thing. I think it’s pretty great, in a goofy way.
    The fight between Starbuck and Lee seems to be a continuation of BSG’s theme of the one’s we love hurt us the most (I think I first saw that theme identified on one of the BSG threads here).

  2. And we hurt the ones we love. I was probably the one to point it out, because I’m getting a bit obsessed with it. If nothing else, all these scenes that cut back and forth between sex and violence are wreaking havoc on my subconscious.

    I am not sure how I feel about this episode. I wanted to like it, because it showed the missing year, because Kara and Lee are gorgeous and have amazing chemistry even if they should never be together, because some things were finally explained.

    But I can’t help but feel let down. I really liked the last few seconds in a horrible way, but the episode didn’t really seem to gel.

    I do wish there’d been at least one other male-female fights. There are enough non-tiny secondary female characters that it wouldn’t be absurd – though apparently the idea that Starbuck could hold her own against a man an inch and a half taller than her who was holding back and had been knocked down to 1/4 his HP earlier freaked a lot of people out, so whatever. Apparently the Apollo/Helo fight was more believable? I mean, sure, they have similar arm width but Helo is twice the size of all the other main characters combined.

    What the HELL was with the Kara/Lee shipper montage at the end? Isn’t that what youtube is for?

    Were the horrible creepy smiles – primarily when Adama allows Cally and Tyrol to leave – just a perspective thing, like all the sunshine on New Caprica and everyone looking more beautiful than usual? Look how happy it is, look how great everything is here?

    Are we supposed to think Adama and Roslin had hot stoned sex? I prefer to think that they just snuggled. So vote: was Adama too dense to notice his son almost vomiting in front of him because of the afterglow or because he was still buzzing?

    Anders is really, really dumb. I feel bad for him, and Kara treats him almost as horribly as she’s treated Lee now, but he’s really dumb. The quick cutaway shot of him passed out just made me laugh. God, he’s just this dumb jock boytoy but it seems like he really loves her. It’s horrible.

    Lee being really lame when he’s drunk was funny. Lee actually making the first move was sweet. I think that scene would have broken my heart if it hadn’t made me so queasy (knowing what was to come).

    Dee continues to be pointless. Why does she love Lee? This has never been explained. Did she or didn’t she know about the sex – because at the end of the episode she seemed pretty freaked out, but she KNEW Kara had done something horrible before. I wonder if Lee lied to her.

    Roslin shows her bloodlust again. Nice touch, though I’m really appalled by the idea of anyone enjoying boxing.

    And, okay, Kara/Lee again. They’re beautiful and adorable together in those brief seconds they’re happy, and though I really want them to have lots more awkward sex, and maybe even tell each other they love each other instead of just yelling at the sky, I hope they’re not being set up as the Ultimate Romance. Kara’s been so thoroughly horrible to Lee who, though pretty screwed up himself (hey, he let his fiance die too), has never been half as nasty to her. She has just been SO UTTERLY UNLIKEABLE this season that I almost feel like liking her out of spite. You know, maybe if I think “I like her like this!” the writers will be horrified and change her character. Because it’s not like they could make her any worse.

    We get it, right? That she’s a screwup? That is what they’re trying to hint at?

  3. Does Kat have the Fleet’s most annoying voice, even when her hair is straightened and she’s otherwise unrecognizable?

    Racist.

    But I haven’t seen the episode yet, so I can’t comment further.

    Also, I totally have a crush on Tory, once I got over her replacing Billy and the whole advising Roslin to sell out abortion rights for political gain.

  4. I thought the first rule about BSG Fight Club is that you don’t talk about BSG Fight Club, but whatever.

    The Adama/Roslin thing is unbearably cute.

    I hope that the writers aren’t Starbuck/Lee shippers; I don’t think it would work out, nor be particularly entertaining. Also, having two space divorces just to get them together would be pretty flippant.

  5. Adama and Roslin? NO NO NO. They have a great mutual respect/deep friendship thing going, but I don’t feel the sexual tension, plus c’mon it would be totally inappropriate politically and ethically for them to be together.

    As for Starbuck and Lee, they missed their chance. I’m rooting for Anders now, though it was incredibly messed up of Starbuck to up and get married after the one night stand. Is it ’cause of guilt over having feelings for the brother of her first love? I don’t get it.

  6. Well, Adama and Roslin are obviously smart enough to know any relationship would be disastrous. But the little quasi-romantic moments are sweet.

    (Also, now that nerdlet’s comment is out of moderation, she said it best.)

  7. Anders is really, really dumb. I feel bad for him, and Kara treats him almost as horribly as she’s treated Lee now, but he’s really dumb. The quick cutaway shot of him passed out just made me laugh. God, he’s just this dumb jock boytoy but it seems like he really loves her. It’s horrible.

    Yeah. I mean I *get* the whole Lee/Kara long-running relationship thing, but you would think Anders was married to here long enough that he should have a better handle on who she is as a person at this point. At least it looks like he isn’t getting cut out of the show. I was worried there.

    This episode was an interesting way to tie up loose ends for the show. I guess the funny thing is, at this point, who DOESN’T want to kick starbucks ass. I mean Hotdog? WTF? Where were Kat and Gaeta?

    I will say this, though. The Chief and Adama thing was almost too great for words. Tyroll is, for my money, the single most likable guy on the show and his relationship with Adama is always done so well.

    The Lee thing has just killed Dewala as a character. The Dee/Billy thing was a great play because they were both younger characters, and there was a good play on the kind of dual orbits of power thing that was going on. I *get* the idea of Comm and CAG having a relationship, but they have just never had any chemistry on screen, no matter how hard Moore tries to write it.

  8. Kinda too soapy for me, but if one of these a season keeps us from having a “clip show”, I’m all for it.

    It’s funny seeing Roslin and Adama hide their ditch weed smoking from Gaeta.

    What the HELL was with the Kara/Lee shipper montage at the end? Isn’t that what youtube is for?

    Aw, hell, you’re right. This was the clip show.

  9. all these scenes that cut back and forth between sex and violence are wreaking havoc on my subconscious.

    Uh, yeah. Only it’s wreaking havoc on my subconscious.

  10. Kinda too soapy for me, but if one of these a season keeps us from having a “clip show”, I’m all for it.

    HERE HERE!

    Actually, all of RDM’s shows have been good about avoiding the clip show trap. He always manages to have an episode like this where they can shoot a bit of footage with another ep and use 1 cheap set and save the $$.

    Honestly, I have to wonder how much of the budget wad they blew for the season on Exodus II. For such an early episode, that had to have been big bucks.

  11. The Lee/Starbuck fight left me thinking of all that has been written on the Greek verb mignumi in the Iliad. It literally means “to mix” but is basically used in two contexts, when two warriors engage in battle, and when two people have sex.

  12. Adama and Roslin? NO NO NO. They have a great mutual respect/deep friendship thing going, but I don’t feel the sexual tension, plus c’mon it would be totally inappropriate politically and ethically for them to be together.

    Yup, yup, yup. It’d be worse than the Sculder that ruined the end of The X-Files.

    Plus, between her presidency and his command, it’s like they’ve already been married long enough to raise a passel of teenagers, you know?

  13. it was incredibly messed up of Starbuck to up and get married after the one night stand. Is it ‘cause of guilt over having feelings for the brother of her first love? I don’t get it.

    I don’t get it either. I’ve been trying to discern what her motivation for the quick wedding to Anders (just hours after shouting to the sky how much she loves Lee) was supposed to be. I can’t come up with anything that really feels satisfying to me. I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts on that.

  14. I don’t get it either. I’ve been trying to discern what her motivation for the quick wedding to Anders (just hours after shouting to the sky how much she loves Lee) was supposed to be.

    Every time Kara puts her faith in someone, she gets disappointed or betrayed. Her mother abused her. Zack couldn’t handle flying after all. Boomer turned out to be a Cylon. Adama lied about Earth. She’s developed a major commitment/trust issue and now she’s afraid to open to anyone. When Lee got too close in the first season, she slept with Baltar to reassure herself that she was still emotionally independent. Her relationship with Anders started as a barrier against Lee, and her marriage was a futile attempt to throw that barrier back up after letting it down one night.

  15. Yeah. I mean I *get* the whole Lee/Kara long-running relationship thing, but you would think Anders was married to here long enough that he should have a better handle on who she is as a person at this point.

    But they only knew each other for a little while and that was mostly as single people. I don’t know how quick it was after but there was a good four months were Kara was in Cylon captivity and once she came out she’d changed totally so I don’t think he *knew* too much about her as his *wife* (if being married does indeed give you a new perspective on a person).

    I tried to like this episode and I will admit that all the times they flirted, and especially during the Kara/Baltar/Kara imagines Baltar as Lee scene I was cheering, but I came out not liking it and going “meh” when they had sex. Getting them together is pointless. I don’t know if it’s the actor or the character but I don’t think Lee has chemistry with anyone, at least he hasn’t thus far. He’s only had one sexual relationship before these two and that was with a prostitute in one of the worst BSG eps. ever.

    Two divorces would be a horrible plotline but I think Anders and Duella might want to start looking into each other.

  16. I’ve been trying to discern what her motivation for the quick wedding to Anders (just hours after shouting to the sky how much she loves Lee) was supposed to be.

    It’s a trust/commitment thing; but I also saw it as Starbuck backing away from all the Sturm and Drang and Angst and other volatile German things that come from her relationship to Lee (proud and prickly), and choosing a more easygoing life with Anders (big friendly lug).

    So far this season the writers have gotten our heroes out of a permanent situation with a lot of potential (the colonization of New Caprica) in favour of returning to the status quo (life in spaaaaaace!); they could easily do the same with all these marriages that happened over the summer. Grmph.

    [/disgruntled fangirl]

  17. I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts on that

    She’s a screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewup! So doomed and charismatic! Screeeeeeeewup! She can kick your ass but not as hard as she’ll kick her own! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

    Really, there’s no explanation.

    A Pang, at first I admired them (while loathing them) for doing the leap-ahead year, now it seems like they’re just trying to return things to where they were before, but with unecessary complications. I wish I could express this more clearly, but it seems like they changed things drastically, then tried to go “well, we’re back in space now like before, but EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT, look how cool it is that everything is different” and it all just seems so pointless. It’s like this: I want to admire them, for example, for having Lee/Kara sleep together offcamera (kinda sorta, you know what I mean) because there were so many shippers holding out for it, because whenever you play up the will-they-or-won’t-they thing it eventually gets cliched, but they know the audience is smart enough that they’re familiar with that cliche so they just kinda went ahead and made it “they did” instead of “will they or won’t they,” but for whatever reason (aside from Kara being a total asshole) it mostly sucked. Argh! Someone succint that up for me, please.

    And on a note unrelated to this episode, I just realized that two women have killed themselves almost immediately after sleeping with Gaius. One tried to kill herself after he kissed her. Is this how the Cylons will be destroyed, eventually? Sex with Gaius?

  18. The “EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT” thing might have worked better if they spent more than a handful of webisodes and an hour and a half of TV-time on New Caprica; they’re telling us, not showing us, you know?

    Is this how the Cylons will be destroyed, eventually? Sex with Gaius?

    It would be ironic in a very lovely way, considering that humanity was almost destroyed the first time that Baltar was sleeping with a Cylon.

  19. Ack! This episode jumped the shark all over the place. Explaining the past year through flashbacks just takes away so much intrigue.

    Bah.

    And stop already with the editing between sex and violence. Ugh.

  22. This episode was terrible. Flashing back to major events that happened within the timeframe of the series but haven’t even been foreshadowed is cheap and sloppy writing. “We spacemen have a long tradition of boxing! We call it The Prom!” Bull. Shit.

  23. Having just finished listening to the podcast, it sounds like RDM likes to see how unlikeable he can make certain characters (Starbuck and Baltar) and then bring it back.

    I think a K/L relationship is doomed. I think L/D was doomed from the getgo. I think K/A had a chance, until this episode, when it just got dynamited into smithereens.

    Yeah, Kara’s scared as hell and does whatever (in the heat of the moment) to not commit to That Guy. He’ll ask a lot more of her than Anders will, I suspect. I don’t approve of how she dumped him at all (Lee’s response to her marriage was perfect- “you’ll need it”), but the second Lee was all “I’ll tell Dee, and you’ll tell Sam, and let’s scream our love to the sky!” you could see the fear in her face like “OMG, what did I just do?! Frak, did I just commit to a guy I’m scared of committing to?” *run* Lee’s the hard choice, Anders is the easy one. And she fucks them both up. Too bad she’s not the type to see a shrink (are there any left?).

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