Sunday night's episode was beautifully written and acted, with a crushing heartbreaking ending that left me feeling genuinely sad and really just depressed.
That being said, the relationship between Kara and her mother was unconvincing on every level.
Psychologically, the mother character made as much sense as Adama's crazy wife did in "A Day In The Life". What exactly was she so pissed about? Why was she so physically violent? To toughen Kara up? What?
I know the world is a horrible place, and right now sick people are doing sick things we don't even want to think about. But, I also watch the news and most parents who are THAT abusive to kids, usually end up killing them before the kid is even out of diapers.
And if you want to toughen a kid up for the military, whatever happened to forced boxing matches, and making them run laps until they puke. Whatever happened to all that drill sergeant yelling?
Secondly, we have the return of Leoben as the ghost of bad mother's past. And only Kara can see him, so yes, she's going crazy. Except, no, it's not Leoben. Who is it? You're guess is as good as mine.
We also find that the fleet is loaded to the gills with fortune tellers who seem to know everything about the Cyclons, and the Colonial gods, and probably how to get to Earth. Why aren't Adama and President Laura consulting with them on a regular basis? That might be useful.
And apparently, if you go to a fortune teller to find out about your mystical, spooky dreams that point to a special destiny, the one thing you definitely want to make faces about and yell at them for is when they try to tell you about your special destiny. Oh, but here's a little angel trinket that you can give your fake-Dad for his ship so he can smash it into bits when you kill yourself.
Finally, this episode completely cheats the audience.
If Starbuck is dead, then we've wasted three years watching the inevitable slide of a suicidal moron. Now she's dead. Good job everyone.
If she's not dead. If she's one of the final Cylons, or one of the gods of Kobol, then Dear Writers, don't screw with us!
It was YOUR idea to give us a female Starbuck. To give us someone new and different that totally messed up the source mythology of the original show. We didn't like it at first, but we bought into it. So don't leave us with the message that a strong female officer is so screwed up that suicide is not only likely but inevitable. Strong women are all crazy? Starbuck deserves better and so does the audience.
Who's next? Which female character haven't we seen killed, maimed, tortured, and next to death? President Laura, Cali, Six, Boomer/Athena, Mrs. Tigh, Xena. It's getting kind of ridiculous. The worst thing that's happened to Apollo in three years is he got fat.
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Update
Listening to Ronald D. Moore's podcast only makes things worse. They did it for shock value. They sold it to the actress. He and his wife completely misunderstand what's going on with gender roles in the show.
He's either lying through his teeth about the episode, or he secretly hates the show and wants it over.
Worst. Podcast. Ever.
