Nice that you were giving a shout out to Trisha Helfer. It’s quite impressive that she was playing at least 4 different roles and each of them different (Caprica 6, Head 6, 6 with the FF, and Handy Woman 6).
Agreed. Was there a scene that she wasn’t in? 
heh, I’ve been saying that for a week, now. It was obvious to me that she wasn’t entirely sincere in her “love” for Cavil in No Exit, and this episode only reinforces that impression. The things she says to and about Caprica are not the words of someone who believes her “accepting” speech in No Exit. Nor is hardly anything else she said or did in No Exit, much less Deadlock…
I still don’t think that she was insincere with Cavil. No one is entirely consistent, and I don’t think that our final Five are an exception.
Hmm. That could work. Interesting! And it would match why there’s brain activity in Anders after the baby died. Well, that theory would work until we actually see how it turns out in the last few episodes. This is a great theory 
In the first few seasons when Athena was pregnant with Hera, HeadSix kept on telling Baltar that the baby was ‘theirs’ (HeadSix and Baltar). How does that work out?
my point is that i believed that when she downloaded she wasn’t the ellen we knew anymore…but an ellen we had not met until no exit…an ellen that believed in compassion but was altared by her vindictive ‘son’ to make her experience all the worst of being human before the holocaust…(and the holocaust orchestrated to show them famine, disease, etc…all the horrors of war) so i still stand by what i said about no exit…just disappointed that this backstabbing, whoring bitch would be the mother of so called compassionate cylons, loving cylons, i mean there is no motivation for her because if she’s still the same ellen, then what the frak would she give a shit in making compassionate caring loving one true god fearing cylons? i was hoping that evil ellen was a construct of cavil’s sick twisted plot…does that make sense?
A theory I had about this was that Ellen isn’t being hypocritical, she’s just reacting to the people around her.
Have you ever noticed how you behave differently depending on the people you’re around? I certainly don’t act the same around my family as I do with my friends, and I suspect the same is happening her. With Cavil, she can be the Earth Mother; with Saul, she easily falls into the old patterns of her life.
I don’t think it’s being disingenuous, both the mother and the vixen are parts of the whole Ellen package, and she’s choosing to be the vixen because that is who Saul knows and loves.
And for what it’s worth, she does somewhat revert to the motherly stance when she tells Saul to tell Caprica how he feels; she comes back to help him when he is in the most need of it.
Even with Caprica she couldn’t keep the Mean Girl routine going and eventually just gave up the fight.
More than anything, while watching the episode I kept thinking, yep, that’s Ellen Tigh. What can I say? I have a soft spot for the mean girls.
i just keep thinking that life she had on caprica WAS a lie created by cavil, and the ‘earth mother’ should be who she REALLY is…just what i would have liked to see happen…
i hated ellen until she softened, her only redeeming quality to me has been her love for saul…and again, i would like to think that cavil couldn’t take that away from her…
i loved her plea to see the f5 with the argument of ‘imagine instead of 50 thousand there are only five!’ and yes her kindness to saul and caprica six…not saying that she was a perfect person before cavil wiped her mind because yes to be human is to have flaws, but not so frakking petty and selfish…i’m not happy with it because by this rationale, the f5 are thousands of years old but have learned nothing and are still little children??
also ellen, by being resurrected has regained her memories of her REAL life BEFORE caprica…all the way back to erf…none of the other final five have that except maybe sam…when you say that you react different around different people, i would expect that from tigh, galen and tory because all they really know is the false memories implanted by cavil…ellen remembers erf CLEARLY…and all the years BEFORE she got to caprica…her time on caprica was so short in comparison to the rest of her life, right? and if that’s how she was on erf, then what was her motivation for any of it? save humanity? is that the ellen we know? if she was given foreknowledge of impending doom, she’d grab a bottle and frak saul till the end came and anyone else who came along…why would she bother trying to build a resurrection hub or create a new race of cylons??
Was I the only one who got all tingly when they did the 3 new beauty passes of Galactica? We even got to see the museum hangar bay through the window!
Chuck, the movie with the church and mirrors is “Prince of Darkness” by John Carpenter.
Just finished the podcast. Great job as always.
I think the reason the baby died was when 6 is beaten up. The writing is fantastic because it also could be the love issue and what Ellen says. So we get to fight over that topic alone for a week or two or the next few years.
Fell asleep last night listening to the latest podcast. Woke up in the middle of the night with the ipod still running; it was playing the podcast from 2 weeks ago but the topic still seemed to be:
‘Adama’s drunk. Can’t run a battlestar that way.’
Ok, I think I get it.:rolleyes:
The episodes are a whirlwind, but where’s someone to notice all this bad behavior and get our man back on track! Laura? Lee? Anyone?
If only Dualla hadn’t shot herself… 
no you were not!!
My theory is this. When Hera was conceived, Helo didn’t realize the Sharon wasn’t Boomer. So even though Athena loved Helo, Helo actually thought he loved Boomer. That might have opened up opportunity for the Head Character and Baltar.
though that’s just a theory. perhaps it’d go the way of glowing back.
Guy Love!
I don’t know whether love has anything to do with the recipe of procreation, but I think I’m in Six’s “perhaps love isn’t enough” camp of things, and love is not a requirement for procreation. One could argue that Athena technically didn’t love Helo until AFTER they had sex - she only decided to run off with him after the sex, and during the conception of Hera, she was still on “assignment” at that point. Perhaps, the conception of Hera on some level helped create Athena’s love for Helo (or, that Helo is DYNAMITE in bed :D), and helped Athena decide to switch teams then - which makes for the whole love-procreation thing a chicken and egg situation. Which kind of makes sense too, for Caprica and Tigh. Tigh didn’t appear to love Caprica until after the whole baby thing.
What I’m curious about is that should the final five decide to recreate download-ibility again, could they enable humans to download as well as the cylons (thus effectively removing almost any distinction between the two species - other than cylons being super strong)?
ETA: Oh, and I actually quite like how crazy and emotional Ellen became after the level headed one we saw last week. It goes to show just how petty and human cylons are. It kind of reminds me of the Greek Gods. Gods? Yes. Petty and jealous? Also yes.
This episode did explain something for that didn’t sit quite right in my head. I was slightly disappointing in how likable and sympathetic Ellen had become at the beginning of Season 3. Granted she was still doing some things wrong, but she was much more likable than the previous seasons. Saying that I want to stress that she’s always been a fun character to watch and even hate at times. Anyway the point is, that I thought the that she had been intentionally softened prior to her death to increase the impact of her sacrifice on the viewer, and it felt a little artificial to me.
However, I now understand that it was all in keeping with her character. The reason she seemed so unreasonable and kiniving was because she was competing for the love of Tigh with Adama. But once Ellen and Tigh went down to New Caprica she no longer had to compete for his attentions too much and she became more level headed. Now that we see her back on Galactica its good to see that she’s the same old crazy Ellen we new from the beginning of the series…
I think this idea that cylons can only procreate when there is love is really interesting. There are thousands, millions, (billions?), of cylons, and not once, not ever, have any two fallen in love??? That just seems incredible to me, OR a “can’t-fall-in-love-with-a-fellow-cylon” program they all ran, like the -don’t-think-about-the-FF program they all had that Cavil put in.
Yeah, I think you’re right about New Caprica being important to understanding her. I remember a scene where Saul and Ellen fight about going down and finally agree to give it 6 months or something. And because she, like you said, had him all to herself, she became a much more stable person after that.
I think you’re exactly right, Phil. I don’t understand why Ellen is being judged so harshly here. She’s flawed, just like any of us, and responding to the hurt of knowing that Tigh doesn’t love her most. Heck, in this episode she even comes to believe that Tigh loves Caprica rather than her. That would be incredibly painful, and I can totally understand her actions. She said she wasn’t trying to hurt the baby, just Tigh, and her reactions during the miscarriage make me tend to believe her. So stop all the Ellen hating, please!
Livia! What’s up? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here since the Star Wars arc!