You’re right, I’d forgotten about that. But it fits with the tendencies we see with human women/cylon women and sexuality that Topgun just mentioned.
I think you’re on to something there; the Cylon have a shallow, and rather cynical, understanding of humanity. I wonder if the humanity and empathy Baltar showed her is going to cause problems. The teaser certainly hinting that she’s going to cause Cally trouble. Just like Tigh caused Adama 
That notion of automatic anthropomorphic free-will and human-like desire in robots harkens back to a pre-Asimov conception of robots and artificial life. It’s Frankenstein and Karel Čapek’s R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R._(Rossum’s_Universal_Robots)
They’ve taken science fiction backwards from Asimov if they’ve gone that route.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov’s_Robot_Series
I’m going to blog on that in more detail by tomorrow night, go here tomorrow if interested:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/
I got the same feeling. I thought that Tori was going to go flirt with Baltar in order to pump him for information (Tigh said as much), but that she was not going to sleep with him. When he mentioned the music, she had enough to guess that Baltar knew something. She probably found herself drawn to him and this was likely the reason for her abrupt departure. And head Baltar showing up.
Also, let’s not forget that of all of the other three Cylons, Tori is probably the most like Tigh in her shrewdness and calculation. She will do what she must to see things turn out her way. We saw it in the election. We saw how vital she was for the New Caprica escape logistics. Also, like Tigh, her plans don’t always turn out as intentioned.
I think what Tori is discovering much about herself and it’s frightening to her. Added to the stress of her position, life on the run, living in fear of being discovered, I can see her wanting to take some comfort with a man whom she feels understands her on some level. And, as Anders head is all frakked up right now, Baltar is it.
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She also seems to actually be enjoying the act once Baltar professes a belief in the “one true god.”
Ooh. Good point.
Perhaps that just somehow sounds ‘right’ to her now?
Wow! I guess I really saw this differently from everyone else. The reason Tigh and co. wanted Tory to go talk to baltar was:
A. Chief, Anders, and Tigh were very well known in the resistance.
B. their feelings on collaborators is well known. They might be Cylon[z], but they despise Cylon[z].
C. If say Anders or tigh went to go chat up Baltar, he would probably expect his intestines to be shortly soon after decorating the Baltar Altar.
D. Tory is really the only choice, and Tigh didn’t even “order” her to sleep with him. Though to be honest, he probably wouldn’t care one way or the other so long as they got the info.
I agree that those are all good reasons for Tori to be the one to spy on Baltar, but the way Tigh framed his idea, “Baltar’s good at two things: lying in a jail cell and lying in a woman,” is what made me read the situation as them sending Tori in because she could seduce/be seduced by Baltar.
I agree with the other posters who said they think Tori never intended (at least initaially) to sleep with Baltar. I think the talk about music really unbalanced her. We don’t see what happened between Baltar and Tori that made her decide to sleep with him. There are a lot of reasons she might have decided to do this.
About the crying - I think she was crying about everything in her life and not necessarily the sex. If she’s held every emotion associated with her new self knowledge in her body for two months and then her body relaxes and she’s vulnerable… I think physical release can trigger strong emotions in people who have been traumatized or are dealing with emotions larger than they can handle. I’ve been told that some people cry when they get massages for that reason.
I did a long post on my blog about the Tory and Baltar scene:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/04/six-of-one-disturbingly-delicious-part.html
Here’s a taste:
Maybe it was having intimate sex with Baltar and realizing the guy is crazy. After all, Baltar also started telling her that, “The one true God has been giving the Cylons emotions,” which should sound crazy. At least it sounds crazy to me, maybe not to Tory. Are the screen writers actually going to make God an active character in their story? Are these the kind of people who think God is active in this world too? Are they going to let this be credible to Tory? Will she investigate the possibility that the boy’s cure was a miracle or not to check him out? Baltar isn’t checking it out, he seems ready to believe.
In the end the emotions didn’t connect to any obvious reading of either Baltar’s or Tory’s thoughts. Tory is still hiding the truth she learned about herself and Baltar hasn’t told her everything yet either. It’s this kind of intense emotional ambiguity, mystery and suspense that keeps me going back to Galactica to see what happens.
I for one think this show has done some incredible things for women on TV period. I remember growing up watching TV it was nothing to have a woman use her body to get information or make things happen. After three great seasons of this show, we now see how fraked up that idea is. I think it’s great that we are having the conversation.
I definitely agree that BSG is one of the (well, in my opinion, THE) best show(s) out there in terms of writing for women; certainly the actors have expressed as much with regards to their characters. That’s why I still can’t reconcile Tory and Baltar sleeping together in the manner it was presented in the episode… though you guys have all definitely given me a few avenues for further considerationm, thanks!
There’s another way to look at this. For the Tighlons - it’s very simple. They need to know what Baltar knows. How to get info from Balter? Well, what does Balter like? Women. Baltar likes women. Tory is the only woman in the group. So she’s the most obvious choice.
The way I see it - in the world of BSG everyone is pretty much equal - so maybe we should see it this way - they don’t have the same issues with inequality that we do. They pretty much see everyone as the same - so why WOULDN’T they use Tory to get info? Maybe for them - the concept that they were using Tory BECAUSE she’s a woman would never come up?
Just a thought - not sure if I explained it well.
I’m with missmuffet on this one - they had to get to Baltar, and get close, and there’s really one two ways to do that - get in bed with him, or somehow stimulate his huge ego and intellect - now, it’s not like Tigh, Chief, or Anders are going to be able to engage him in an interesting discussion of particle physics or anything like that…
Okay – if you think that Tigh would sleep with Baltar to get information.
Would guys use women that way? Why haven’t we seen that? Would a straight guy seduce a gay man for information, or another gay on a gay?
The thing is it’s always been women using men, so how equal are they?
Try asking him a question.
Why hasn’t Baltar been debriefed by the higher ups about his experiences with the Cylons? Or, has he? Was he honest? We didn’t even get to see Baltar witness in his own defense at the trial.
Don’t these people read Sun Tzu: know your enemy.
The tactic with using Tory assumes Baltar has secrets and his trust has to be won first. We don’t reveal our darkest secrets to strangers. She’s going after dangerous information.
Exactly. Which is why it seems kinda weird… in terms of command structures, abilities, etc, women and men are equal in this world. So throwing in a very cliche (and in my view somewhat sexist and unfair to the character) seduction confirms the femme fatale.
And it also bothers me that it’s a woman of color doing the cliched sex for information switch. I don’t think I’d articulated that before.
Well, if gender roles are so ‘equal’ that they’re interchangeable, and Tigh would have as much chance at seducing Baltar as Tory, then yeah, that’s a valid complaint. But I don’t think that even the BSG world is quite there.
See this is why i see how Tigh is very valuable to the battle against the cylon (even though he is the cylon.) but i wouldn’t really want to be around him if didn’t have to. he does what he sees as needed, no matter the morality of it. He showed us that on new Caprica. and maybe most would see it as needed. but it damns you just the same.
In the end i felt spitting angry at Tigh. but i wasn’t surprised by it. still at some point i would be happy for someone to call him on the things he’s done. but to his credit he doesn’t fool himself in thinking its an honorable but horrible thing needed to be done for the greater good. He just does what he believes is needed and accepts the consequences.
now as for Tory it was simple she should have just leveled tigh and called it a day. but BSG is a hardly ever simple
Anders and Chief seem to have blown their first opportunity to call Tigh on what he was doing. By not stepping up for Tory they were agreeing with him.
If Tigh were a smarter man he might talk Adama into letting him question Baltar officially about Baltar’s experience with the Cylons.
… but to his credit he doesn’t fool himself in thinking its an honorable but horrible thing needed to be done for the greater good. He just does what he believes is needed and accepts the consequences.
When it looked like the survival of humanity was at stake I’d be inclined to think a lot of things are justified. I just don’t think Tigh is wise enough to do the right things when their time comes.
…now as for Tory it was simple she should have just leveled tigh and called it a day. but BSG is a hardly ever simple
She should have at least got Tigh to say he would sleep with Baltar if he thought it would do any good.
On my blog:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/04/six-of-one-disturbingly-delicious-part.html
I said I though she should have said “hey, you frak Balter if you want information.” She would have only been disarmed if Tigh said he would.