I’m going to go ahead and spoil this, as per Hoops, but based on Ron Moore’s podcast…
[spoiler]…they are themselves. That in his HO CapricaSix and Baltar are projecting there own visions of how they imagined their lovers to be and using them to on the one hand to assuage their guilt ( Baltar ) and on the other castigate their guilt ( Six ) over their respective responsibility for genocide. They are solely unconscious manifestations of their own consciousness - Baltar was right in his first impulse in the mini-series. It seems he truly is a genius and damn lucky to boot to correctly predict/guess at the sequence of his own “advice.”
And I’m not sure I can swallow that. It requires a lot of special pleading for Baltar’s perceptiveness and sheer coincidense to fly. Too much, perhaps.[/spoiler]
I might almost prefer a technobabble answer, instead of the off camera one.
Okay: Not to start a flame war or anything – and not to be dense, but really, this episode to me said, “We’re just fraking with you and biding our time to the big cliff-hanger, so we can regroup and figure out what we’re doing here.”
Honestly. I don’t think they thought this out this far, I think it has shown in the second half of this season, and I hope they get their act together and start really telling a story again.
Not that I’m saying this episode was bad, but for a glimpse at Cylon culture, it was pretty lame.
You’re all welcome to love it, but I found it a further disappointment (though not as bad as) continuing from the last few episodes, and reinforcing a general meh at part 2 of season 2 in general.
Of course it is still miles beyond SG-1 and SG-Atlantis, but at least they’re not trying to be deep and serious and making a mess of it.
Just had to say it in the face of all this blind love you guys are feeling, cause I’m NOT feeling it.
I far preferred the general malaise of the BSG Internet fandom over the last three or so episodes, than the rabid and ill-thought-out speculation by BSG fans on many boards over this last episode.
I’m kind of wondering if Moore et al aren’t feeling the same, because it seems like “Downloaded” was almost tailored to frack up quite a few fandom favorites:
“Baltar is a Cylon!”
But if he is, there’d be no recognition of Caprica Six as a hero for convincing another Cylon to follow the Cylon Plan.
“But he couldn’t have survived a nuclear blast!”
But we find out that enough of Baltar’s house survived for Caprica Six to go memento hunting.
“Anders is a Cylon, he’s setting Starbuck up!”
Now we see that both D’Anna and Sharon instantly recognize him as a human.
Now if Moore would just do something to establish that Ellen Tigh and Tom Zarek are human really, I’d be a happy man.
See? That’s what I get for having to get up every five minutes last night to tell someone that it was bed time, and that he should stay in bed. At least she was pausing the DVR.
Best ep in a long time. It cleared up some things while leaving a lot of other things to think about. I like a lot of the ideas from The Gaspode’s post above. While I don’t see that this is necessarily what’s going on, Gaspode has put out some ideas I hadn’t thought about before.
Heck, I’d be happy if he’d establish them as more than two dimensional characters, mysefl …
I’m surprised you think Zarek is two-dimensional. To me, he’s always come across as very ambiguous and complex in motivation – particularly in “Black Market”.
Ellen is a bit more one-note, but when she and Saul were held hostage by Viper-Guy-Who’s-Name-I-Can’t-Remember, she did seem to have some actual fear for her husband’s safety, which I wasn’t expecting (since she’s never displayed any real care for anyone other than herself).
Nonetheless, the impulse that BSG fans have toward thinking “if it’s evil, it must be a Cylon” is quite irksome.
I don’t think it’s that; it would be a really cheesy device for the writers to have the bad guys be Cylons. My over voiced fear (You listening, Moore?) that BG will become the “Cylon of the Week Show.” Our thoughts and conceptions are colored by this device; “If this were Bonanza the thief would be a Cylon because thieves and Cylons are evil.”
Moore is deeper than that. We are going to see more and more “Good” and “Evil” Cylons and humans by the time this ride is over. The line is going to get more and more blurry.
Why does Pogo come to mind? “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
OK, I have to give you that one. They have done work to give his character depth. I guess what I want to see is just a lot more of his character.
That’s never been me. I’ve liked the nastiness they’ve shown humans capable of, particularly the treatment of Pegasus Six.
I will tell you, though, I have been guilty of the “if it’s Cylon, it must be evil” mentality, which this week’s episode has gone to great lengths to disabuse me of.
BUT: But but but. I’m convinced that the current Galactica Boomer is evil and the whole thing has been a play to get them to trust her. I think it’d be an extremely interesting plot development to get Cap Six and Boomer to the Galactica – openly, as Cylons – and see what shakes out.
The counter argument would be the original Boomer who actually thought she was human. That there aren’t more sleepers like this seems to imply that making a unit like that takes a lot of effort. I, However, thing that Boomer of S.1 truly was human, and that Cylons had copied her. Making her a Cylon from the very beginning seems like something Ron Moore made up after a while, to add a twist.
What you’re getting would be very nice, no doubt about it. However, you pack enough deaths into the heads of all your new meatbags and I bet they’re going to get pretty traumatized. How many deaths can someone handle before they become unbalanced.
The Cylons obviously don’t have perfect control of all of this - if they did there wouldn’t be such a thing as “boxing”. They could just edit out the bad stuff.
I’m guessing there’s a massive downside to endless resurrection. I’m betting we’ll get to see that expanded on, as well.
Imagine the fun when Cap Six, who still loves Baltar, meets up with him again, and tells him who she is, forcing him to re-transfer his affections back to his original love Cap Six and away from Gina-Six, who will no doubt have a mixed reaction to the whole mess.
Don’t think this was mentioned - I loved that bit about all the cylons calling Caprica Six “Caprica Six…as though you’re the only Six on the planet.” I’m guessing that was a wink at the fans.
From the Wiki, for those of you still wondering if Sharon ever actually existed:
I was wondering why, to root out the cylons (Cylons?) in the Fleet, they don’t just return to Ragnar Station or something similar and wait until someone gets sick?
as the meatbags become more and more humanlike with every ressurection, and have their own ideas about what to do with Humanity, that may differ from the mechanicals and Raiders, at what point do they split off from the mechanicals plan for the humans
if more meatbags end up like C-Six and C-Boomer, there’s the very real possibility of a Cylon “Civil War”…
of which the Mechanicals have an overwhelming advantage, tactically…
i’d like to see Ron Moore and crew play up the internal dichotomy/power struggle that may lead up to a civil war…
maybe that’s Humanity’s “Last, Best, Hope For Peace…”, get the Cylons fighting amongst themselves while they slip away…
