4.17 Someone To Watch Over Me

The episode started with a somewhat whimsical feel for the first third, which made me wonder if this was going to be one of those introspective types of affairs rather than a more progressive occasion. Introspection is fine, sure, but at this stage in the season you’d hope things were moving!

Turns out they were definitely moving in this fundamentally two-pronged episode chiefly concerning Starbuck and Tyrol.

Starbuck’s was the least surprising and yet the more compelling plot. The piano player she met in the bar it seemed, to me reasonably early, was purely someone she could only see and hear. No one else acknowledged what was happening at all, but the encounter seemed to possess that vibe anyway so I don’t think the programme-makers were trying to pull it off as any major surprise.

By the end of the episode it seemed certain that the piano player was a manifestation of Starbuck’s father – whether he looked identical to him we can’t know, but in the way he talked, and the warm-up tune he used, and the cigarettes he was smoking, and particularly towards the end in how Starbuck was flashbacking to her own childhood with him then the parallel was striking. Is it significant? Is her longing for a father-figure somehow linked to that crazy idea I had a couple of episodes back, about how Starbuck is somehow an offspring, or a conversion, of the ‘lost’ Cylon model Daniel?

What’s intriguing is what it means about Starbuck. She’s been in a tailspin ever since she saw her own body. And in this episode we witnessed Boomer displaying the powers of projection we’ve heard Cylons mention before (nice to see old-plotting brought back to the fore), creating fantasy worlds to take her mind out of the present. Was this encounter with the piano player a form of projection from Starbuck, further cementing her as one of their kind?

Or was it a ‘passed on’ projection, from Hera to Starbuck, via the small communication they had where Hera passed her the notes to The Song? That one seems a little off – but there was a brief mention of a higher power that controls everyone. . . Maybe Starbuck’s part of that? As ever, it’s more glimpses without a full view of the whole thing. Although the moment the piano player/Starbuck struck out The Song fully on the piano was a thrilling moment, excellently edited against the climax of the plot playing out between Boomer and Tyrol.

Anders the musician needs to wake the hell up and spill what he knows!

Boomer managed to squirrel her way into Tyrol’s affections by projecting the life they dreamed of having together. When she left him at the end she made an unnecessary declaration that she genuinely did love him – and I believe she means it. But then her model is one that gets taken by shiny things, so the fact that she even meant it then doesn’t mean it’s a feeling that will last!

So it seems her secret agenda for returning Ellen to the fleet was so she could engineer the kidnap of Hera – and it was nicely done. The scene with Helo in particular, with the beaten and bound Athena forced to watch them together, emphasising what a poisoning element in their midst she was. And Boomer left leaving more than a distraught Athena behind, jumping next to the fragile hull of the Galactica and doing untold damage.

Roslyn’s reaction, with Helo and Tyrol and Athena also, suggest this kidnap is not something that is going to be allowed to stand. The Cylons, also, consider Hera a symbol of their futures. Doing nothing us surely unthinkable. Ellen may know where Cavill is (or perhaps the ‘stars’ Hera draw serve as a kind of map!) but the Galactica doesn’t seem to be in much fit state to plunge into battle. Desperate times, and the end is closing in, which further impresses the feeling that this net is tightening inexorably.