{"id":580,"date":"2011-09-09T13:00:57","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T20:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=580"},"modified":"2011-09-08T23:24:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-09T06:24:28","slug":"mark-watches-battlestar-galactica-s02e14-black-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2011\/09\/mark-watches-battlestar-galactica-s02e14-black-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches &#8216;Battlestar Galactica&#8217;: S02E14 &#8211; Black Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourteenth episode of the second season of <em>Battlestar Galactica<\/em>, Commander Adama assigns his son to investigate a military death due to a burgeoning black market in the fleet. Lee, on the other hand, struggles to deal with his ongoing sense of vacancy. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s time for Mark to watch <em>Battlestar Galactica<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Well, it had to happen <em>eventually<\/em>, right? This is the first episode after a <em>very<\/em> long run that I don&#8217;t particularly like. It&#8217;s a shame because in theory, this episode has about 50 billion things in it that I really love. But the execution of these ideas comes across as confusing, implausible, or just downright strange. I believe it is time for a double list!<\/p>\n<h1><strong>THE GOOD<\/strong><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li>I was more than happy to have an episode that dealt with the depression and the moral crisis that Lee was going through after his near-death experience on the <em>Blackbird<\/em>. I get the sense that other people didn&#8217;t like this, but I thought it was sensical to introduce the story in &#8220;Resurrection Ship, Part II,&#8221; and to deal with it after &#8220;Epiphanies.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>I enjoy the idea of <em>BSG<\/em> tackling noir motifs throughout the story. All the pieces are there: murder mystery; tortured detective; love interest; betrayal; complicated plotting; surprise ending.<\/li>\n<li>Every second of the confrontation between Baltar and Roslin. Perhaps the best written scene of the episode, and yet another example of how talented this cast is. Baltar has <em>no idea<\/em> why Roslin is offering him his resignation, and he and Six interpret it as a power play, one riddled with fear. But she is fully aware that she witnessed Baltar and Six together, and I kind love that she keeps this information to herself. Basically, in the very near future, shit will get real and I will weep with joy.<\/li>\n<li>As weird as the whole story line is (and I&#8217;ll get to that), it&#8217;s very in-character for Dualla to address Lee very directly about their flirting. So I&#8217;ll give the writers that one.<\/li>\n<li>The first fight scene in Shevon&#8217;s room, where Lee is ambushed, is FUCKING INTENSE. My god.<\/li>\n<li>If any character should give exposition to us through providing information to Lee, I&#8217;m glad it was Zarek. I really enjoy his character and every appearance he makes. I&#8217;m intrigued by the way he seems so interested in Lee. Did he have another motive for giving Lee the info about the <em>Prometheus<\/em>?<\/li>\n<li>Have I mentioned I love parallels? I love parallels, and I love the one between Lee and Baltar. Both men were given a &#8220;way out,&#8221; and both categorically refused them.<\/li>\n<li>If the people on the <em>Prometheus<\/em> were nothing but people of color, I would have punched myself in the face with rage because I hate that trope, but I was impressed that this wasn&#8217;t the case. WHEW. <em>BLOGGING CRISIS AVERTED.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>LEE SHOOTS PHELAN. <\/strong>That never happens!!!! EVER EVER EVER. Or at least I cannot think of examples right now, but that confrontation ends the same every single time but NO. LEE WILL SHOOT YOU DEAD IF YOU ANGER HIM OVER\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.yeah, there&#8217;s no hard justification of it. Moral ambiguity, <em>get on my television screen<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Shevon&#8217;s rejection of Lee. Don&#8217;t care. I was dreading this final moment and was shocked (pleasantly so) that Shevon refused to fit Lee&#8217;s perception of her and rejected the entire idea that she existed just to act as the solution to his problems with his past relationship. I did not expect this, and I&#8217;m glad it&#8217;s there. Lee, <em>what are you doing<\/em>? You are not anyone&#8217;s savior, and Shevon can take care of herself <em>LIKE SHE&#8217;S BEEN DOING FOR YEARS<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>The final scene between Lee and his father, especially since Adama shows his son how easy it is to read him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1><strong>THE BAD<\/strong><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li>If Lee is going to have a moral crisis that concerns a past relationship and a current one\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.where is Starbuck? Does she mean nothing to him?<\/li>\n<li>How long has it been since &#8220;Resurrection Ship, Part II&#8221;? Because how on earth did Lee develop a relationship with Shevon that is <em>that<\/em> serious in that span of time? This confused me, too, because I didn&#8217;t know if the Shevon scenes were happening in real time, or if they were a flashback.<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of that, is this <em>Inception<\/em>? No? Then don&#8217;t put flashbacks <em>inside of flashbacks<\/em>. The flashbacks were so clumsy and confusing that it took a friend <em>explaining it to me<\/em> for me to comprehend it.<\/li>\n<li>I love <em>in media res<\/em>, but you just did this. No.<\/li>\n<li>Why didn&#8217;t Admiral Fisk have guards on him, given that Cain was murdered in her chambers when she was alone?<\/li>\n<li>Colonel Tigh&#8217;s wife was trading with a well-known black market operative. After Lee discovers what&#8217;s really going on, why does he never address this again?<\/li>\n<li>I do like that it&#8217;s here, but the Dualla\/Lee side plot feels very rushed. I wish it had more screen time. But I&#8217;m totally fine if this gives way to Billy\/Dualla.<\/li>\n<li>I get that they were trying to go for the noir feel, but did Lee seriously have to do all of this entirely by himself? With not <em>one<\/em> person assisting him???<\/li>\n<li>Here&#8217;s the weird thing, and this is more of a tonal complaint: there absolutely would have been a black market in this situation, and I appreciate the realism of that idea. However, by the end of the episode, the black market doesn&#8217;t <em>feel<\/em> real. Like Shevon, it felt like something that existed to only prop up Lee&#8217;s story.<\/li>\n<li>Yeah, okay, <strong>SINCE WHEN DID LEE HAVE A GIRLFRIEND WHO WAS PREGNANT? <\/strong>Or trying to get pregnant? Or pregnant and then lost the child? I don&#8217;t even fucking know <em>what actually happened<\/em>. That shouldn&#8217;t be something I have to guess.<\/li>\n<li>What was with that weird shot of Zarek in the market? I don&#8217;t get it.<\/li>\n<li>No Sharon, Helo, Starbuck, Gaeta, Tyrol, or Cally. BOOOOOOOOOO.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not my favorite episode, but also not because I didn&#8217;t try to find things to like. They are there, but it&#8217;s a mixed bag for me. Still, I don&#8217;t imagine this will be a common thing, and I love that there have been so many fantastic episodes in a row! I think Lee&#8217;s story could have been given a better treatment, but it is what it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourteenth episode of the second season of Battlestar Galactica, Commander Adama assigns his son to investigate a military death due to a burgeoning black market in the fleet. Lee, on the other hand, struggles to deal with his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2011\/09\/mark-watches-battlestar-galactica-s02e14-black-market\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[112,120,9,110,113],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battlestar-galactica","tag-edward-james-olmos","tag-jamie-bamber","tag-mark-watches","tag-mark-watches-battlestar-galactica","tag-mary-mcdonnell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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