Music
First off, a note to the music in this episode. Holy crap! I am always a sucker for piano, and Mr. Bear McCreary certainly doesn’t disappoint in this episode. The opening piece in this episode — which I shall dub “Metamorphosis Kara” — reminds me of the opening to Lay Down Your Burdens (season two), an original piece by McCreary titled “Something Dark Is Coming” — to this date one of my favourite all-time songs. I am trying to find “Metamorphosis Kara”, but I have so far been able to find very little information on it. The style is very similar to Philip Glass, whose “Metamorphosis One” we heard in Starbuck’s apartment back on Caprica in season two — hence the name I have given it. The closing piece is equally intense, being a piano rendition of “All Along the Watchtower”, which we have been hearing a good deal of since its introduction at the end of season three.
Mystery
Next, on to the titular topic. Given Kara’s projection — to borrow a Cylon term — of her father, Dreilide, and the unknown nature of her existence, I am tempted to believe that Dreilide is actually “artistic Daniel”, the lost Seven. If true, this would make Kara the first Human/Cylon half-breed — perfectly acceptable given the “all of this has happened before” motto of the show, and her knowledge of “All Along the Watchtower”, which appears to be deeply rooted in Cylon history. In fact, until Kara played it at the end of Someone to Watch Over Me, only known Cylons and half-Cylons knew anything of the song.
Which brings us to Hera, who as an “innocent” child is somehow channelling the song’s music, which she passes on to Kara. Whatever Cavil wants her for, it is clear that she has some level of knowledge or ability that is beyond any logic, and inextricably ties her back in to the idea of prophecy.
And now for some questions. Namely, if Tyrol is instantly able to identify Boomer from all of the other Eights, why isn’t the same true for Helo and Hera? They both accept the imposter Boomer as the “real-deal”, even though it is quite plain to the audience that she is acting strangely — which should be enough to tip you off right away. Even the day-care.. if you knew there were a bunch of Eights running around and all of a sudden one comes in to take Hera and is acting very weird, wouldn’t you start asking questions? Yeesh.
I have to admit, I haven’t really liked the show for quite a while now. Aside from the fact that I saw they were getting ready to vilify and then kill off Geta, one of my last remaining characters who I liked and respected, the mutiny episodes were still pretty awesome episodes. But aside from that, not a whole lot has happened apart from a lot of melodrama. All the characters (except maybe Lee) have gone some measure of insane (with Starbuck leading the charge into absolute bat-shit crazy). That said, the music is, as always, still highly enjoyable (and this is coming from someone who has a hard time connecting with music).
Specifically related to this past episode, I absolutely agree with you that it was weird for both the Chief and Athena to be able to identify Boomer immediately but Helo and Hera could not. My girlfriend’s explanation was that the Chief had an epic love for Boomer while Helo actually loved the originally Boomer before meeting Athena on the planet (and initially thinking she was Boomer), but I think her explanation stems from the fact that she never really like Helo’s character and thought he was kind of a meat-head. Also, even my girlfriend’s explanation does not explain Hera, as children usually have an absolutely uncanny ability to recognize their mothers.
All that said, I have a hard time thinking that all that has happened in the last couple seasons was actually originally planned out. I really don’t think they ever planned to make the Chief, Colonel Tigh, Helen, random manipulative bitch who replaced Billy, and Anders cylons. While the explanation of the sort of cylons they are kind of mollifies my disbelief somewhat, adding in the thirteenth cylon (who I agree with you is most likely Starbuck’s dad) after all of the talk of the twelve models strikes me as a weak plot addition. Also, where the hell has Xena, Warrior Princess been?
Interesting.. After Gaeta got his leg chopped off, I kind of started hating him. His character got so boring, always moping about complaining about itching. Meh. I was pretty glad to see him — and Zarek — go. Unfortunately, Ellen came back though.. so we netted losing one annoying person!
I heard an decent answer to the Boomer/Athena question, though — Athena and the Chief are both Cylons, whereas Helo is not and Hera is only a half-breed. This could explain why Helo and Hera couldn’t tell them apart. But still, letting a random Eight walk in and take Hera from day-care, in a flight-suit no less? Come on..
I also agree that this stuff was most certainly not planned. For example, I am convinced the only reason they gave Nick Tyrol a different father — Hotdog — is because by the time the writers decided Tyrol would be a Cylon, Nick had long since been born, and they didn’t want to have to deal with a second Human/Cylon half-breed child. In particular, this would have made Hera non-unique and therefore more or less useless.
– Music –
I found that Bear McCreary (who creates the music for BSG) has a blog. In one of his posts, if you scroll down to the heading “Post-Production: Writing the Score”, you find that the song played during the opening montage is in fact an original Bear McCreary piece, and not Philip Glass as I thought. It is in fact part of Slick’s Sonata, “Elegy”. Incidentally, that post I linked to is part 3.. you should read through it from part 1, it talks a lot about the production of “Someone to Watch Over Me” and is a very good — and very interesting! — read :)