All right, BSG, I am still not happy.

[eye_of_a_cat]

I haven't seen 4.08 yet, and so I fully accept that everything I am about to say might be dealt with in that one and that I will sound fairly stupid to everyone who's further ahead than I am. But I am saying it anyway. So, okay, here we go, with spoilers for 4.04 and up to there behind the cut.

Dear show: I stopped reading BSG meta a while ago because of all the vitriol directed against Cally and Dualla. I do not want to see any variant of that shit on screen. And by that, I don't mean killing off Cally (hey, it's BSG, people die); I mean this, afterwards:

Adama: We all miss her, Chief. I understand if you need some time off, or even if you might need more shifts. Keep yourself busy. No-one knows how they're going to react to a loss like this, or what they're going to need.
Tyrol: I don't need special treatment.
Adama: I guess she just couldn't take it, huh? Being married to a Cylon, being the mother of a half-breed abomination.
(Tyrol looks at Adama, startled)
Bartender: Here you go.
Adama: Thank you. (To Tyrol): She was a good woman.
Tyrol: If you really believed that, you wouldn't have threatened there to stick her up against a bulkhead and shoot her.
(Adama says nothing.)
Tyrol: It's okay, though. I thought about doing it many times myself. Believe me -
Adama: Chief -
Tyrol: How many of us ended up with the people we really wanted to be with? Got stuck with the best of limited options. And why? Because the ones we really want, that we really loved, are dead, dying, turned out to be Cylons and they didn't know it. If Boomer had - if I had known -
Adama: Let's, uh -
Tyrol: No.
Adama: Let's go.
Tyrol: No. No. I didn't know.
Adama: Let's go home.
Tyrol: I didn't know! So I buried my head in the sand, and I took it and I settled. I settled for that shriek. Those dull vacant eyes. Boiled cabbage stench of her. And why? Because this is my life! This is the life I picked! And it's fine, but you know what, it's not. I didn't pick this life! This is not my frakking life!
Adama: What the hell's gotten into you? Don't do this. Don't do this to a memory.
Tyrol: You know what? I'm sorry if I'm not going to do this the way you want me to, or the way you might. But I am not going to make an angel out of someone who wasn't an angel. (Pause) But I can see you have.

(The bits in italics are in Tyrol's head, or at least, I'm fairly sure they are; Adama's holding a drink when he says 'married to a Cylon', but the bartender doesn't actually give him a drink until afterwards.)

So, I'm guessing that the generous reading of this is to see Tyrol as lashing out at everything in the wake of Cally's death and his own discovery of what he is, and goading Adama to a point where he's punished by having responsibility and respect taken away from him.  The idea isn't that we'll agree with him about Cally, in other words; it's that we'll be as horrified as Adama, and see it as a sign that he's clearly out of his mind.

And I would be a lot happier about going with that reading if I hadn't seen a good chunk of fandom say exactly that about Cally beforehand. Or if Jane Espenson, who wrote that dialogue, wasn't a big fan of Jacob's recaps at TWOP, and Jacob wasn't spearheading the we-hate-Cally movement to start with. Or if it wasn't woven in with sentiments we most likely are supposed to see as Tyrol speaking the truth, like his regrets over Boomer. Or, you know, if there was anything in later episodes to support that reading. Which there isn't.  So as it is, I can't help but read that whole scene as a gift to the fans who wanted that kind of gift; if you don't care much one way or the other about Cally, then Tyrol's going insane, but if you hate her than here you go! Tyrol did, too! Look, he's just speaking the truth, harsh as it might be, and he's refusing to 'make an angel' out of her like Adama is!

Welcome to space, where 'she was a good woman' constitutes making an angel out of someone. Sheesh.

So, yes, still grumpy about this, because it was so damn vicious and because there's no real suggestion that we're supposed to find it seriously out of line. (Compared to, say, Kara's bloodlust with the secret trials and executions after New Caprica, where we clearly were supposed to see her as half-insane and her actions re: Gaeta, especially, as really not okay.) I liked Cally, who was sweet and decent and loyal, who joined the military to pay for dental school and bit off a rapist's ear and gave the BSG-verse the term 'motherfrakker'. But even if I hadn't, I'd still be annoyed with this.

Comments

[angry-geologist.livejournal.com]

I really, really hope that Tyrol learns to give her the respect she deserved. And I really, really hope that Tori finds her way to an open airlock.