Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Dictates Of Conscience
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.05.2006
Casey lies in a hospital bed with a bandaged head. Leoben brings Kara a cup of coffee as she stares down; she takes it after a moment and looks up at his face. A Raider flies over. He sits and watches her intently as she sips. Fucking anything but little kids. I cannot do that shit. I would rather watch "Pegasus" a hundred times than that shit. Auugh. I'm shivering just thinking about that.
Boomer enters Cally's cell; she doesn't look up. "Hi, Cally," she says, and identifies herself in the particular: "It's me. Boomer." Not Number Eight, but the particular Boomer that dated the love of your life, that you shot with an ugly face. Cally won't look up; when she does, the face is back. "I wish I had a gun." I'd turn around and leave even if I didn't fucking hate Cally. Rude. Boomer sighs. "Are you all right? Physically, I mean?" Cally snarls at her. "What do you want from me?" Boomer looks around herself, finally crouches at Cally's side, trying to connect. "Look. A lot's happened in everyone's life, but I want you to know... I want you and Galen to know that I'm happy for you? Especially since you started a family," she smiles. "Something him and I talked about once before," she says sadly. Dumb, Boomer! Why the fuck do you think she shot you in the first place? Cally jumps up at her, like a beast; Boomer jumps back: "Can you get me out of here?" She's not sure, because of the separation of ministries... "Then frack you, Sharon. You stupid fracked-up toaster. How many times do I have to shoot you, anyway? If you can't help me, then just go away and leave us alone." "Us," is it? Boomer stares down. Question: How come Cally's the only one that gets to act like this? How come Dualla's turned from some girl into a pretty cool chick, but Cally's as nasty and classless as she was to start with? I promised myself and Aaron Douglas I wasn't going to hate her anymore, but I can't find my way around this one. I don't know what else to say. I just fucking hate her. ... No, I just figured it out: this scene is about everything I hate about her, so it makes me crazy. It's not that she's acting poorly or out of character, it's just all the things I can't get past with her, in one short scene.
This is a woman who is so sold on her own status as a victim that any time she reacts to anything, it's both A) nasty and B) self-congratulatory. She's so meek and mild and whatever, so when she does speak up it's with vulgarity and violence, but none of that would be necessary if she had any sense of self at all in the first place. She acts out of weakness and entitlement: "What can you do for me? Then fuck you." This is the kind of woman who marries her abuser, which... is what she did, so never mind. I get it. Totally my shit, and I get that now, and I apologize. But I mean, lay her down alongside Boomer: two women who loved the same man. And one of them kept her mouth shut about it and felt yearning feelings of victimhood and love, and the other one went through an identity crisis the likes of which nobody's ever seen before, and tried desperately to hold herself together for his sake. How can Cally ever think she wins that fight? If she can't even believe in herself enough to get over this jealousy shit when she landed the guy, had his baby, and her rival is a member of the Nazi party, when does she actually calm down? Never, and I don't even care anymore. I know she's not going anywhere, and I want Chief to be happy, so me and Cally will have a truce, and meanwhile I'll be over here with Boomer and all the other people who aren't selfish and pointless and mean -- who actually try, and change, and grow.