BSG 4.09 The Hub

[hazelk]

If I remember rightly there was a Dickensian undercurrent to Jane Espensens’s Dirty Hands. Here it was more of a motif with Elosha playing Laura’s “full of myself” Ghost of Christmas Future. I think my favourite of those scenes was the last with the two of them idly watching the hybrid in her pool like old ladies on a park bench, every jump taking them closer to home.

In the early visions Elosha and Laura walked together through an eerily deserted Battlestar. Elosha like Head!Six may or may not have been real (at the end she seemed to know something Laura didn’t, that Bill wasn’t on Galactica) but she was *also* the voice of Laura’s subconscious just as Head!Six is Gaius’s. I don’t think those two roles are mutually exclusive. The device of using visions to reveal Roslin’s inner thoughts has been going on since her dream back in season one and she’s a smart woman it feels appropriate to depict her as thinking metaphorically. It also seems appropriate that Roslin would imagine Elsoha as a guide. Is an imaginary magical negro a reiteration of the stereotype or a comment on it? In any case Elosha rather than say Billy. Billy was a protégé and although, like Lee, he had valuable insights you don’t picture yourself being advised by your metaphorical children.

Elosha shows her empty corridors suggesting that she prefers them without the clutter of humanity, shows her deathbed and her mourners congratulating her for having not yet succeeded in making them as incapable of empathy or love as their leader. It’s harsh but I would expect Laura to be harsh on herself and I don’t think it’s entirely justified. The President connected just
fine with the dying Emily even if she finds the uselessness of a mass of unelected representatives (to go by the nature of Lee’s appointment) less sympathetic.

The conversation turns to whether the body or soul of a leader sets the standard for her people. Laura rejects the solipsism of her cancer causing the bombs to fall but it’s an interesting concept to have lurking in the back of your brain. I think it ties into her fear of weakness, she overcompensates for having "the body of a weak and feeble woman." Talk of Baltar leads into Bill reading from that damn book. This part took place before Baltar was wounded but in hindsight the passage Bill reads was quite prophetic with its talk of the scar gouged in the body of the island. And Gaius did save Laura’s life.

The next jump follows her decision to re-open his wound and it’s then that we get the discussion of death as the great leveler, her own, his, good, bad, indifferent. Then the question about what is required from her. At first I have to say the answer Elosha seemed to offer seemed too pat. Love. It seemed almost as if Laura were being chastised for being unwomanly. It seemed to be saying "your job is to look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, love one person and the people will look after themselves," which I don't think is true.

However, in the final vision it sounded as if Roslin interpreted it otherwise and believed that what would let humanity be judged worthy was showing not love but mercy. Certainly not romantic love as Elosha’s answer seemed to imply on first viewing. I *really* don’t think she loves Gaius but then I don’t think she hates him any more either. Maybe that’s enough, maybe not hating is a form of love, people not person love – he’s finally back in the circle of humanity as far as she’s concerned.

I wonder if in the end it all connects back to processing the original genocide, the issue Lampkin had with his cat. Laura’s been hanging on all this time not to a cat but to the hope that getting Baltar to confess might somehow explain things. It was as if she believed that if only she could get him to admit whatever he’d done there would be some kind of justice, some understanding of why everyone died. And as ever this became a case of being careful what you wish for. Baltar’s chillingly incomprehending account of how God rewarded him for what he did, his babble about guilt and floods and the reinvigoration of the race removed even that last chance for making sense of what had happened. It made no sense and never will and in that moment you could understand why she might have wanted to end it all, end him but I’m very glad it didn’t end there. She seems freer now - being allowed to go, to rest was in the vision too. Free to love.

Other stuff:-

The Eight called taking on Athena’s memories a betrayal of trust, knowing too much by human standards. Then discovered how humans can exploit the inability to know one another to betray trust in their own way. Cylons are mortal now but their memories can still be passed between bodies, just not downloaded whole to a new one.

I suppose that makes D’Anna in her uniqueness the only truly human one and she’s certainly leaned human cynicism. I really liked this hungover incarnation of Three, the religious fervor she got caught up in last season wasn’t a good look for her. Interesting to see her and Roslin understanding each other, back in S3 there were some similarities between D’Anna the Head Girl with religious visions and Roslin’s S2 arc.

Gaius, dear Gaius, you’re not the Messiah, you’re a very naughty boy. Born again Baltar seems to have reverted to being a precocious teenager. The kind who knows he’s the first person ever to discover God/Nietzsche/Marx/Existentialism/drugs/sex/rock ’n roll and just *has* to tell everyone. It was hilarious when he and Roslin were squabbling over how to communicate with the hybrid (it’s really very simple – you listen to her) and even more so when he stormed off to evangelise the centurion.