I finally got around to watching “The Hand of God”. Unsurprisingly, since it’s on the same disc, I also re-watched “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down” because I was in the mood for some humor. I’ll have review posts for “Colonial Day” and “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part I” (and probably Part II) up in the next couple of days. No sense in spamming, right?

( And now, 'The Hand of God'. )

Now I’m going to watch “Colonial Day” and then “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc.” Maybe not immediately afterward, I’m definitely going to watch it before the evening’s up.

I AM BACK, DARLINGS. DID YOU MISS ME?

I am ridiculously tired. Woke up at 6am, got a shower at 6:30, and we left around 7:30am. I think we got to Amanda's at around noon? IDK, I can't remember. Didn't get back home until 1pm, maybe? Argh, can't remember. Too tired.

Left the house at 1:30ish to go to the hospital because my Opa is sick. Stayed there until... okay, I suck at remembering times today. I think we got home at five or six? UGH. I THINK I AM GOING TO BED.

BUT, I had a great time. It was wonderful. The beach was awesome. Except for the sand, omg. Since I usually don't lay out on the beach, I forgot how sand travels in the wind. And there is no getting it off with anything except water.

The pool was great. It was small, because we were staying at a condo and not a resort, but I think most people went to the beach or just came down later than we did. I... would say more, but I am too tired to think of anything else.

Slowly working my way through my friends list. This is not made any easier by my tiredness. Need sleep ugh.

ALSO: TONY AWARDS. Anyone have Youtube linkage so I don't have to try to find it myself?

All right, I'm not leaving for the beach until Sunday, but I most likely won't be able to post anything tomorrow.

I'm going to be gone from Saturday to Thursday, probably not back on LJ until Friday or even the weekend, since I'm coming back to company. I might have internet access at the condo, but I'm personally hoping I'll be too exhausted to use it.

Try not to miss me too much. :P

♥

I have a dirty little secret. When I first saw this episode, I loved it. It might very well be my second favorite episode of season one, the greatness that is “33” being my first favorite. I love that it’s not the standard Battlestar Galactica fare. It’s not serious or really important to the overall plot, or anything; it’s comedic and happy, even, and no one dies to immediately remind you things are ~*serious*~! (“Act of Contrition”, I’m looking at you.)

But that’s not the secret. The secret is that I hated Ellen Tigh. Hated isn’t even a strong enough word to describe how much I despised Ellen Tigh. I can’t even fully explain why, except she seemed so idiotic and she made Saul do stupid things, and there was the alcoholism. I hated her even more after the martial law debacle and worse still, I hated Saul himself because he was so cowed by her.

So how did I go from absolutely hating her to absolutely loving her? It started with New Caprica. My hate of Ellen dissolved, little by little, in four episodes (three and the beginning of the first act of the fourth one, if you want to get technical). Starting with “Occupation”, where we find out she’s frakking Cavil to get her husband out of detention, and culminating in her death, I grew to, well, not really love her yet, but I certainly liked her a hell of a lot more.

The New Caprica arc was the first time I knew she truly loved Saul, just as much (if not more than) as he loved her. “Why did he stay married to her?” Lee asks in this episode. “It’s obvious he loves her deeply,” Laura tells him, and Bill corrects, “Blindly.” I agreed with that assessment when I first saw the episode, but since then, I’ve come to realize Bill was wrong. Saul isn’t blind to her faults and flaws any more than she is blind to his; he loves her anyway, and she loves him.

In “Exodus, Part Two”, when Ellen tells Saul what she did and then asks for the drink, I started crying. No, seriously! Actual tears and everything, over a character I didn’t even really like. As a matter of fact, I cried more over Ellen’s death than I did Laura’s, and Laura has always been my favorite character. And damn it, I still cry every single time I watch “Exodus, Part Two”.

Anyway, as I mentioned above, I still wasn’t completely in love with Ellen yet. No, my complete and total love for Ellen Tigh wouldn’t come until she was revealed to be the Final Cylon. A part of it was that I did like Ellen now, and another part of it was that I love the Cylons. But one of the major reasons why I loved Ellen as the Final Cylon? She and Saul were the epic love story of Galactica.

I loved that. Apparently, I am a sucker for dysfunctional couples that really, really loved each other and are actually soul mates. I think another reason why I love Ellen so much is that, particularly after “A Disquiet Follows My Soul”, Laura fell from grace with me. I just couldn’t love her as much as I used to, and I needed someone else to look forward to seeing. Ellen got to be that character and I’m insanely glad she did, because she is awesome.

And so, that is the story of how I fell in complete and utter love with Ellen Tigh.

( Now onto the actual episode review. )

I would have had this finished way earlier, but a severe thunderstorm came through at around noon and killed my power for a few hours.

( Litmus behind here! )

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm doing something a little different for this recap. Considering how my "Act of Contrition" recap was horrible, I'm going to do less recapping and more watching and commenting on events. This is also partially because I hand-wrote the "recap" (I guess I should go back to calling it "commentary") instead of typing it. I might do "Litmus" and "Six Degrees of Separation" the same way, since I'm not particularly fond of them. But I'll decide next week, when I actually sit down to re-watch "Litmus". (The best thing about those two episodes? "Flesh and Bone" and "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" come next.)

( Behind here. )

Yes, I'm aware this is ridiculously late. I did consider waiting until Sunday and watching "Act of Contrition" and "You Can't Go Home Again" back to back. While that would certainly have been better for me (I can't stand watching one part of a two part episode), that's not really in the spirit of the epic BSG re-watch. (Besides, I already did that with "33" and "Water", so I should at least try to watch everything else in the proper order. At least until next season.)

( As always, commentary is behind the cut. )

God, that was long. I'm glad I didn't decide to do two episodes. Anyway, I should return to my normal BSG-watching schedule Sunday. Maybe. Also going to try to watch Caprica tonight or tomorrow and get my thoughts on that.

Other news:

» Going to watch Caprica at some point and give a review of it.

» Not going to bother with Heroes, because "I Am Sylar" didn't grab my interest enough for me to comment on it. Except I was wrong about it being the season finale. I misunderstood the promo for it the week before. Next Monday is the season finale; I'm not as excited as I should be.

» Have no clue what's happening on 24. Except I read that someone died and I kind of hate that. Oh and Kim came back or something.

» Looking for a new layout, but can't find one I like. Well, I like the ones at milou_veronica, but I haven't found one I like as my layout.

» That untitled Laura + Ellen fic is now 4,395 words. Ellen decided to monologue about the children (all eight of them). The good news is that I can save that for future reference; the bad news is that I'm probably going to have to cut it out of the fic itself. Which really isn't that bad if I do later use it in another fic, but it always makes me a little sad to cut such things.

» Also, I feel as if Laura and Ellen are not actually discussing things as I wanted them to. They touched on humans and Cylons, a little bit about Bill and Saul, but that life and death and living and dying with the choices you make? Not so much. Head, meet desk.

» Added two new icons the other day. Laura in the Opera House and Kara and her father playing the piano. I can't decide what I want to be the 15th icon. There's so many great ones and stuff.

» Annnnnd I think that's it.

Since I have the house to myself today, I've decided to watch "Bastille Day". (Sigh, I remember when I planned this re-watch and Tuesdays were going to be my watch day. Then Wednesdays. Now, it's just whenever I have the house to myself.)

( But on to the commentary... )

Now I'm going to get something to eat because I haven't eaten anything except for some chips and Cookie Dough Bites.

Wow. So this is what watching history in the making feels like.