Battlestar Galactica has always been a parade of self-sabotage. Not that we're gonna drop any spoilers for those of you who haven't seen it, but even a cursory knowledge of the show reveals that you got your hotshot pilot wrecking herself with booze and ill-advised hookups, the possibly-delusional scientist who's led to do things he might never even conceive of by the voices in his head, the self-medicating XO, the medicated and messianic President, the honorbound and existentially lonely Adamas... we could go on.
Still. Holy crap. Can you believe what they've been putting people through in the last few episodes? More to the point: can you believe what the characters have been putting themselves through? Like, if this were Gossip Girl, everyone would be cutting themselves or something. If you're caught up on the show, then click on through so we can discuss in more spoiler-friendly environs after the jump.
We're not complaining, you understand. We're still pretty much right with the show, and we're impressed with the degree to which its creators seem committed to playing through the endgame -- this is the final season -- as unsentimentally and, indeed, as cruelly as possible. But we are kind of wondering where all this self-destruction is going. Because just in the last couple weeks, we've had Starbuck making herself crazy and hinting at a reconciliation with Leoben, Tyrol edging steadily towards Travis Bickle-dom, Cally contemplating offing herself and then someone else taking care of it for her, Colonel Tigh getting a Number Six to pound the crap out of him and then (possibly) seduce him, the President burning off whatever legislative goodwill she'd presumably earned with the Quorum, and Gaius Baltar skirting with religious martyrdom. Oh, and then there's the entire Cylon race, which decided in the space of a single episode to cave in on itself. (And if somehow we didn't catch all that, we had that helpful scene where Tori got all kinky on Baltar, thus illustrating how she -- and by extension everyone -- has lost the distinction between pleaure and pain.)
So what do you guys think? Are they losing you with all the extra gravity or does the go-for-broke-ness of it all excite you? After three years of everyone fighting each other, is the lesson here that the most difficult battles are with ourselves? Or does it all seem a little forced, like they know they're gonna have to do something crazy in the final episodes -- let's say a Human/Cylon allegiance of some lasting sort -- and the first step towards that is breaking everyone down so they can start anew.
Oh: and when does one of those dumbass cult gals get jealous and try to cut Baltar?
