Romo’s GREAT and GRAND REWATCH

Greetings Fleet! I am but mere episodes away from finishing the GREAT and GRAND rewatch inspired by both the Blu-Ray release and the Fleet Reunion coming up on Halloween. I have much to say and will be posting my thoughts upon completion.

To sum it up, Ron Moore is no longer disappointing to me. Well, AS disappointing. I’m sure most of you feel pangs of aggravation, but I still feel that you should watch every episode again from beginning to end and see how you feel about it then. There were mistakes, sure. Expect a GREAT and GRAND summation soon!

So Say We All

xoxo,

President Swapping Places with Col Tigh for Halloween Lampkin

The Plan.

I really ought to be in The Plan.

I hope my dog’s ok.

So Say Well All

-President Romo

What the FRAK Was That? A Posthumous Perspective.

So we’ve had a little time to reflect, to mourn, to anticipate the coming Robotolypse.  We may never answer the question, “Why did the last forty minutes suck so much (except for me dying, which even made Baltar cry)?”  Yet, we CAN answer the question: “Who most accurately predicted this ridiculousness?”  And since I have a lot more free time, being dead and all, I WILL answer that question.  Right now.  And I must say, re-reading our predictions really drives home how sorely this finale disappointed.

President-for-Life-and-Afterlife Laura Roslin earns:

• +1/2 point for predicting that things would blow up.  A gimme.
• +1 point for Kara’s musical math leading us to Earth, albeit not through the black hole as I’d hoped.  Note: it would have been MUCH COOLER if what I’d predicted had actually happened.  I’m just sayin’.
• +1 point for settling on a planet and planting a new flower, although we must interpret “flower-picking”  euphemistically as Hera taking the “flowers” of various cavemen.
• +1 point because Gaius risked his life for the Miracle Baby and redeemed himself on his farm.
• +1 for Lee’s helmet hair & leadership folly.  Seriously, what was he THINKING?  And why did we LISTEN to him?  Did anyone SEE the last episode of Survivor?  No Antibiotics = Certain Doom, People!
• +1/2 Gaius gets some action… not of his usual variety.
• +1 for the AWESOME final battle that I’ve been raving about for weeks.
• +1 because Simon came through for me in a big way, until that bitch Boomer snapped his neck mid-speech.
• +1/2 for Boomer saving Hera (predicted penultimately).
• +2 because the Gods smiled on Gaius, Fat Lee, Doc Cottle, Hera, One of Helo/Athena, Romo, Ellen, and Hoshi
• +1 because the Gods smited Cavil, Boomer, Anders, and Tory.  I know I said she’d live in this last post, but I created the Tory: Your Days are Numbered tag, so that’s gotta be worth a quarter point.
• +1 because I finally went to the Great Cruise Ship in the Sky.  I’m awarding a whole point because (a) everyone predicted this, so no one gets an advantage, and (b) the scorekeeper’s demise is more important than everyone else’s.
• +0.5 because the prophecies were true, and I did lead my people to a new world before I kicked it.
• +1 because the Opera House vision finally came to its ridiculous conclusion.
• Beyond the Grave Grand Total: +13 points

Athena, wife of the only surviving Hot Husband, earns:

• +1 for my death, plus 1/4 point because that Searider Falcon death scene would have been totally awesome.  Why do you not listen to us, Ron??
• +1 for Cylons & Humans Finally Getting Along (after blowing each other to frakking hell).
• +1 for Anders’ sun salute
• +2 for Gaius staying on Galactica, being selfless, and riding off into the Opera House sunset with Caprica 6.
• +1 for Cottle re-appearing and not dying (yay!)
• +1/2 because half the Centurions sided with Not Cavil.
• +1/2 because Galactica presumably blew up when it got too close to the sun’s corona.  Or maybe just melted?
• +1 for the pigeon metaphor being heavy-handedly explained to us
• +1 for the formative Shawn Ellison One Night Stand
• +1.25  for the survival of Leobhen, both Adamas, and Mr. & Mrs. Tigh
• +.75 for the demise of Boomer, Cavil, and Galactica
• +1 because Zak showed up again
• +1 because Kara was already dead… or was she?  Stupid Kara.
• +1 for Romo taking over for Lee, though why he couldn’t stay in charge is a mystery.  Stupid Lee.
• +1.5 for the 8 on 8 violence and for Helo making it through
• +0.5 because Hera lives.
• Humanity’s Grandma’s Grand Total: +16.25 points

Once-Great Warrier Diva Turned Simplistic and Unsatisfying Religious Archetype Kara Thrace earns:

• +1 for pre-150,000-years-later humanity not all being Cylons.
• +2 for Baltar staying behind to reconcile with Cap-6 so that they could both deliver Hera unto the CIC.
• +1 because I’m dead.
• +0.5 because Kara let Anders go, but only because he had to be shot into the sun, and then she decided not so much on the Lee thing after all.  She had to go be a pigeon or something.
• +1 because Adama flew a viper, and he WAS a badass.
• +1 for a new home for the fleet
• +1 because we were ALL really sad when this was over.
• Grand Total for God’s Plan’s Errand-Girl: +7.5 points

Romo “Hidden Talents with Letter Openers and Running Civilizations” Lampkin earns:

• +1 point for Anders blasting the shit out of Cavil’s colony.
• +1 point for Anders calling Kara the Harbinger of Death a few eps ago; I don’t think I ever awarded points for that.
• +5 points for predicting against all odds and reasonable plotlines that Earth was Fake Earth and that we would know it when we found Real Earth.
• Sweet, Sweet Vindication Grand Total: +7 points

I’ve sorted through some old posts, but not all.  (Okay, mostly my own.)  You have one Earth week to adjust your points after providing sufficient justifications in the comments.  This is assuming anyone besides me ever checks the blog again.  After seven days, I’ll finalize scores and hand out prizes.

Peace,

Mrs. Laura Roslin-Adama

If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry

Here I sit, broken hearted…

Just wanting to know the ups and downs of what the fleet thought of the finale. Ol’ Romo’s been waiting since Friday night to get your thoughts.

Will we Finally Know WTFIGO?

No.  A lot of this mystical bullshit will remain unexplained.  Instead, we’ll focus on (a) blowing things up, (b) figuring out what the frak is up with Kara, and (c) fiddling around with that singularity (see theory immediately following).  We won’t hear much about Kobol or the Temple of 5, but we will run into Daniel again.  But he’s NOT the puppetmaster of everything.

The singularity is not just a convenient port for Cavil.  Someone, and possibly everyone, is going in that mofo.  There are two distinct possibilities:

1. Peeps (like the Admiral, the Galactica, Boomer, or Athena/Helo) sacrifice themselves to the black hole in order to defeat Cavil and rescue Hera; or
2. We all go through the black hole, and pop out at real Earth / new universe / Daniel’s Day Spa on the other side!

My money is on option 2.  The black hole is more than a metaphor for all this “other side,” “life-and-death” blah blah – it IS the other side.  Kara’s special musical math equations will Lead Us to Our End through the black hole.  One of them last week looked suspiciously like an ellipse…  These equations may also have something to do with the DNA of humans or hybrids, so that Cylon-Human Duality will be built into the very fabric of our Universe on both a micro- and macroscopic scale.  I mean, this universe is certainly looking custom-built: stars go supernova just because we’re around; Kara pops through a Maelstrom wormhole to Earth; everybody knows the special Bob Dylan song [though only hybrids and particularly artsy people can hear it, unless they're turned into ship hybrids].  Perhaps our universe was a black hole in the universe of a previous cycle, and by going into the new one, or just blowing shit up near it, we’ll start the cycle over again in the new Universe.

There will be one more Adama hygiene scene, and/or someone brushing their teeth on the brand new planet, and/or someone picking a not-dead flower on a new, not-dead planet.

All hybrids know that Kara Thrace is the harbinger of death because all humans know this, but they have to be lobotomized before it comes out consciously.  And all humans know this because the Lords of Kobol programmed it into humans.  Same as the song.

Gaius will make an honest attempt to sacrifice himself for Hera as per Caprica 6’s nagging, but someone else (Boomer?  Athena/Helo? Chief?) will render his attempt redundant.  He’ll be redeemed and ready to lead, maybe spiritually rather than politically.  Clearly Lee has to be the political leader of whatever’s leftover of the fleet, because he’s not going to have any more vipers to fly around once the Galactica goes boom, and anyway he doesn’t want any more helmet hair.

Speaking off the fleet leftovers, what is the non-rescue-mission component of the fleet going to do without the Galactica?  Not much.  They’re pretty much screwed without security, water, raptors, etc.  So Adama is dooming them to a cold death in space by leaving them behind in order to rescue Hera.  Perhaps Gaius will rally the fleet to join the Galactica in the fray at the last minute.  He’ll get into the action somehow, as will other civilians.  Perhaps some of the civilian ships will serve as decoys to get the Galactica into the singularity’s gravity well.  Or maybe the Galactica’s parts that have been divvied up to the fleet’s ships will be activated by Anders’ super-hybrid jumping powers.  I’m not clear on how the Galactica is going to defeat a whole phalanx of basestars and the Colony, but it will, and it will be AWESOME.  Then we’ll hopefully find a planet, or else we’re screwed.  Last week’s return to Caprica was meant to prepare us for leaving space behind and settle back down on solid ground.

Also:

• Simon has a profound soliloquoy.
  D’anna returns.  Romo does not.
• That dead copy of Kara is from the future – she’s hasn’t died yet, but she’s going to.  And then they’ll be another copy to replace her.
• Kara and Lee will end up together, since Lee has made it clear he doesn’t care what copy he’s on, she’s still his #1 crush.  They will have a baby [One Year Later time lapse...] and name it Kaycee.
• Someone eats noodles.

And now it’s time to play God(s).

Who Will Live:

• Gaius
• Kara
• Fat Lee
• Hot Dog
• Nicky
• Tory
• Doc Cottle
• Hera
• One of Helo/Athena
• Romo
• Ellen
• Sonya
• Racetrack
• Hoshi

Who Will Die:

• Roslin
• Caprica 6
• Cavil
• Adama
• Boomer
• Anders
• The Chief
• The Rest of Helo/Athena
• Tigh
• Leobhen
• Seelix

And of course, the last scene of the series will also be the most magnificent flashback of all time: Anders playing his guitar for the woman – Starbuck! – he loved.

I’m not really bringing my A-game here, fleet.  As Baltar says, I think the cancer’s gone to my brain.  It’s been a pleasure – and an honor.

-LR

WTFIGO: The Eights last stand

When all of the eights gather round the campfire, and starts reminiscing about the good old days, we talk about how things ended up.  I mean, we might in the future, in our collective consciousness when we all project together.

How things might end up, otherwise known as discussion topics for when Boomer’s and my souls can ever converse if and when we hop into the same spatio-temporal place.

The holes that need fixing, or the UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:

What will happen at the end of Searider falcon?

Adama will read it to DYING ROSLIN.  And then she’ll die, and he’ll put the book in her arms, kiss her forehead, and leave to go grimace.

Human and Cylon origins:
Humans made the cylon robots.
[GAP]
The final 5 are from the 13th tribe of Kobal.
The final 5 made the skin jobs. / the Centurions got made by cylons, too.
So who made the 13th tribe of Kobal? I don’t know, but the last episodes will tell us.

The final situation:
We’ll hear the Cylon music-song again in the end.  It might even become the new “national anthem” like song.  The ending political/social structure thing will have a hexagon as a representation – it’ll reflect the hexagons that are the dogtags etc and the double-tri-point star shape of the Base ships.  Which means…CYLONS AND HUMANS WILL GET ALONG AT THE END (I’ve clearly been predicting this all along).

What will happen to the final five?
Anders is a goner.  He’s got nothing useful left in him.  I think we’ll see him sing or do something else musical before he’s gone for good, but he won’t do a projection conversation with anyone – it’ll be in a flashback or he’ll die-sing like how Gaeta wanted to.   It was partially Anders fault that Daniel got created at all, on account of him being a musical hippie guy, so he might be referenced in any discussion of Daniel. PS: He won’t speak coherantly and will remain in his Hybrid form til Galactica dies, and he will too.  But he might do something really awesome and strategic when he’s controlling Galactica, which he will be able to, by the networking of the computers on the ship via the cylon bioorganic resin.

Gaius Baltar, our favorite nominally coherant non-leader scientist sex fiend
Gaius will be slithery like the mink Romo wishes he had in his ark of animals.*  He’ll sneak onto Galactica’s special secret-mission, and do something to save Hera and be selfless.  He might also end up on Galactica’s special secret-mission by accident – maybe he gets beat up and left in a closet, or maybe he’s being…serviced… by someone in his harem/mental Six, and finds himself on the mission.  Either way, he’ll do something selfless, have an internal monologue that we won’t see about rubbing it in Lee’s face, and then he and Six will die and go off into the sunset together.  Or just go off into the white part of the opera house with a symbolic Hera.  IF Baltar dies, he will definitely have his last in-person appearance in the opera house.  Same for Roslyn.

* I  have a tangential theory that Romo has a secret fleet of animals somewhere like Noah.  I do not think this will be proved right or wrong.  It’s just my personal theory and I wanted to put it out there.

What will happen to the rest of the fleet?
Lots of people will die.  The remaining fleet (not the super-secret Galactica mission) will get attacked or have an internal conflict.  Baltar’s harem vs. the bad boyz of the underbelly of Galactica?  That internal conflict I predicted will surface in the absense of the leadership they’ve been accustomed to.  And people will DIE.  BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.  Being on the Galactica mission will turn out to be just as much as a bad thing as staying behind.  Even though Cottle stayed behind, we’ll see him once more, because we’ll have a little bit of what happened in the rest of the fleet “While you were out” recap sometime in the 2 hours and 11 minutes of awesome.  They’ll totally need whoever comed back from the Galactica mission to bring some order and structure.  PS: Cottle won’t die.

Smaller predictions:

• The wall of dead people will be reconstructed somewhere, and we’ll see it.
• The miniships for planning strategy will also make another appearance on screen.
• There’ll be a people-who-died montage sometime in the last episode.  Maybe in the post opening credits drums or the last 1 hour segment of the episode?  Maybe in an episode?  Maybe at the very end?  Somewhere.
• There’ll be another So Say We All chant.
• Adama will do one chore he hasn’t done lately.
• Someone will drink real, non-algae coffee.
• Fat Apollo will fly a viper (I know, lame prediction, but still.  Valid, on account of he could be adminstrating or strategizing)
• The Centurions will side with not Cavil
• Galactica will blow up.

From last week?
Why did we have so many flashbacks last week?  The easy out is that everyone in the flashbacks will die like, now.  But we don’t think that’s true.  We will find out conclusively what Lee was doing attacking the Pigeon.  It’s not a metaphor for his inner conflict about whether he should be a politician/leader or whether he should go with his soul and be a viper pilot.  It was something formative in his life that WILL BE EXPLAINED.

Roslyn’s date with Sean Ellison will also be something that turned out to be really formative.  And it WILL BE EXPLAINED.  But Sean Ellision IS NOT SOMEONE WHO SURVIVED THE ATTACK ON Caprica.

Six killed Baltar’s dad before the Cylon attack.  It was a mercy kill, like the baby.  Maybe Six killed other people, too, just to make sure that they didn’t survive.

Who’s going to die?

Tory and Hot Dog will both be around during the final episodes and both will survive.  Neither of them will do anything noteworthy, as usual.

• Only some of the final five will make it.
• An eight will die.
• Cavil will die a la the Wicked Witch of the West.
• Leoben will not die.
• Roslin will die.
• Galactica will die.
• Anders will die.
• Bill Adama will not die.
• Lee Adama will not die.
• Starbuck is already dead and :. will not die.
• The Chief will die.
• Ellen won’t die.
• Tigh won’t die. (Ellen and Tigh are totally going to make up on account of their universe spanning cosmic destiny to be together.  And if for some reason they do die, they’ll  both die together.)
• Zack will make an appearance this episode(s).

Romo won’t appear, and we’ll assume he made it and/or he’ll be involved in final-situation leadership.

Other stuff that I’m too tired to predict thoroughly but am putting together really quickly just so I can get credit

Starbuck and Roslin will have a heart-to-heart and Roslin will pass on some nugget of wisdom, on account of Starbuck is the closest thing (in the Adama family tree) to her having her own daughter.  Starbuck + Lee = <3.  Maybe Starbuck will get pregnant by the very end, and we’ll know about it.  If not her, someone.  A PREGNANCY WILL BE ANNOUNCED.

Athena will extend her dark moments into an all-out I’m a mean Cylon moment.  Then she’ll realize she was wrong to just go back to her primal urges, and be nice again.  But during her dark time, she and Boomer will have a wicked fight, where Athena will be the force of evil/anger and Boomer will be the side of good/what’s best for Hera (which is what she’s going to be pulling for from here out.)  One of them might die, and it is probable that one of them will kill the other.  As I’ve been predicting that only one Hot Husband will survive, it’ll be HELO and he’ll be all awesome and be important in leadership and stuff.

Former predictions still stand.

That’s all.  I’m tired of writing.  And hopefully I’ll survive this show, in one of my many incarnations.  At least my DNA will live on, because Hera won’t die.

WTFIFinallyGO: Fighting Them ‘Til We Can’t Edition

Oh my Gods, it’s the end. At least I’ve already died once so I’m prepared for it. I don’t have a lot of time while we travel at relativistic but subluminal speeds to the Colony, so I’ll be fast.

This idea that we’re all Cylons and have been all along? Total bullshit. I don’t buy that. The point is us coming together and becoming one through a future human-Cylon generation, not that we’d been together all along.

Ice Cream Social on the Baseship

So, Baltar didn’t cross the line last week, but he’s going to do it metaphorically this week. He has to do something completely selfless before our time is up. It’s what he’s been building up to since the destruction of the Colonies. I bet right now he’s hidden somewhere on Galactica, having changed his mind about not going to the colony. His Nymph Squad doesn’t know that he hid, or else they’d be pissed and everything. And once we get to the colony, Baltar’s going to do something truly selfless and help save Hera, dying in the process. That is his character arc. Caprica Six is probably going to die doing the same. They’ll have a tender moment together before it’s out. Baltar will tell her that he loves her.

We’re going to find out that I’m half-Cylon when Anders decides to project with me. He’ll let me know what I am in Projection Land, and then he’ll tell me that it’s time to let him go ’cause he’s never going to be normal again. (Sigh.) And then when we are back in reality, I’ll be free to go be with Lee. We’ll kind of represent the future of humanity — human and half-human/half-Cylon coming together. (Heh heh, dirty.)

Roslin will die, obvs. Probably after something dramatic happens to Hera. Maybe about halfway through two hours. Adama and Tigh will fly Vipers and be badasses.

Example of Tigh Being a Badass

Daniel is my dad. Daniel has been pulling the strings? Sean Ellison will be important. The flashbacks will continue this episode. We’ll find out who the woman is that Anders loved on Earth. Tory will do NOTHING and the Chief will probably never find out what she did to Cally. The Admiral will give another epic speech and we’ll end in a “SO SAY WE ALL!” chant. The fleet will find a new place to live, which we’ll learn about from the colony.

I don’t want Anders to go down with Galactica in some kind of military maneuver.  He’s sacrificed enough to do that.  He’s been trying to find ways to get out of this war.

I will be so sad when this over. I’m sure there are more things I can predict, but I’m distracted. We won’t see Seelix again.

I feel like getting wasted like Anders!

Boom boom boom.

Anders Will Lead Galactica To Victory

I have an emergency last minute prediction.

Upon watching the video montage provided by one Kara Thrace, I have concluded that Anders will use his hybrid brain to save humanity and fight Cavil.

What a guy!

Romo out.

My Name is Kara Thrace and I Love Sam Anders! (Part 1, the video)

In the past I’ve mentioned, no doubt to the point of annoyance, that I love every person in this Fleet. (Even if, outwardly, I appear to hate them.) Now witness my new column in the Colonial Express, ‘My Name is Kara Thrace and I Love ______!’, where I get drunk, get in touch with my subconscious, and wax poetic in a rambly, nonsensical fashion about my hippie love for everyone.