Episode Report Card Jacob: C | 43305 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT When Will The Work Be Done?
By Jacob | Season 4 | Episode 20 | Aired on 2009.03.20
(Except, hold up. I can handle the fighting and whatever, because Lee's hair looks fantastic and Caprica with a gun pushes buttons I didn't know I had, but let's review. The visions that have been appearing regularly for over half the series, that have provided meaning and context for half the characters on the show, that have provided what little female-female bonding and connection the show affords us, the visions that got Natalie killed... Amount to what, exactly? A dress rehearsal of a déjà vu, in which two women walk down a hallway and a third woman picks up a child and walks, conservatively, six yards, with zero danger anywhere nearby. This is the prosaic destiny that enfolds Caprica, Athena, Laura and Hera? And Gaius? To go down a hallway. Chip's Challenge indeed, motherfucker. It takes five people, Cylon projection, two Angels, two to four Moms, and a hallucinogenic folk remedy to bring this miraculous vision to bear? That is some weak sauce. It's basic storytelling to fulfill something this large and trumped-up with something worthwhile. If that's the shit God really needs you to know, then God is pretty much retarded.
"I'm sending you a vision. Disobey it at your peril. One day years from now, you are going to go downstairs, open the mailbox, and take out an Entertainment Weekly. On the cover will be Paul Rudd. You will think, based on a caplet review, that you should probably just give in and watch one episode of The Closer, because you love Saving Grace so much, and Trust Me is growing on you. But by the time you get back upstairs to the TiVo, you will be thinking about lunch, and will die without ever seeing that show. However, a few weeks before that happens, you will look out your window and see a pretty blonde woman reaching into that mailbox, and you will go nuts and shoot her just for standing near your mailbox. This is the Shape of Mail To Come.")
THE OPERA HOUSE
Awesome, though: the truth of the Opera House is that it is Galactica. Specifically CIC, where Gaius and Caprica find themselves. There are bodies of the dead and dying everywhere, on every conceivable surface: bridge officers and Watchkeepers, Simons and Dorals. A Simon stands with blood shooting out of his jugular; Bill shoves him over with his foot, hilariously. There's a Doral on the floor, beautiful and tiny and dead. All the songs start playing at once. ("Music, did you say music?") Sam is sitting up now, and the Five look down at them, as bright as stars. Gaius and Caprica stare up at them, in terror and wonder: in awe. They step forward into their presence.