Episode Report Card Jacob: D | 1419 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT BattleNoir Redactica
By Jacob | Season 2 | Episode 14 | Aired on 2006.01.27
Apollo sees a disturbed Siobhan and walks over to her where she's sniffling at the bar, like thisclose to pulling her ragged dress around her shoulders to hide her exposed nakedness so that Apollo can give her the trenchcoat of chivalry. She shrugs him off not because she's not interested in being a tired, played-out fake male empowerment fantasy in a sub-par Marlowe ripoff, but because she's spent the last scene worrying -- not about her child who is now in whoredom, or the fact that she and Lee were both about to die the whole time -- but in fact about whether or not she can truly fulfill Lee Adama's huge, gaping, all-important emotional needs: "Stop! I can't be what you want me to be...You want me to be her. That's what this is about. That's what this has always been about...I know my job. I'm a replacement. For a lot of things. Things that men can't get anywhere else. Things they've lost. She wanted to give you a child. But you were afraid, so you pushed her away and then you ran. And you didn't stop running until it was too late. Well, I'm not her! And Paya is not, and will never be, your child." Fucking gag me. And the thing is that everybody -- Siobhan, Bamber, the editors, music -- works triple-time to pull this load of crap off. It's one of Bamber's finest performances, reacting to this, trying to interrupt, trying to stop her, trying to tell her it's not true, having to admit that it is, balking at the whole thing. The editing cuts ruthlessly between this speech and somewhat literal flashbacks to the Caprica truth of this story she's telling. Everybody does their best to make up for the crappiness of this entire scene, and that's a bummer, because you should only have to bend over backwards and kiss the Emmy when you're actually going to be earning it. If you're going to infodump exposit like this, at least have the grace to earn it from the inside like, say, Dualla, rather than have it all come spilling out of this random woman we've never seen before and will never see again. Unless they find her in a refrigerator next week or something.