Written by Michael Taylor
Directed by Michael Nankin
“I don’t want to fight, Sam. I wanna frak! You don’t get it, do you? I’m not the same girl you married. All I wanna do right now is frak…really frak, like it’s the end of the world and nothing else matters. So come on, Sam…make me feel something. I dare you.”
I’m not the biggest fan of The Ties That Bind…because I don’t think it succeeds at what it’s trying to do. If anything, it throws too much at the story wall and hopes enough of it sticks.
It’s trying to be an exercise in moods — trippy, disconcerting, confusing, drug-addled, emotionally wrenching moods. It tries really really hard, and visually, it’s a partial success. Director Michael Nankin takes the camera and uses it as a visceral bore hole into the nightmarish world of Cally and her self-destructing life. It looks sickening and twisted, and it works damn hard to makes us feel as bad as she does.
The only problem is that it’s just so damned sudden! It’s almost out-of-the-blue…and that’s surprising for a series reliant on meticulous, slow-boil plotting as Battlestar Galactica. I would have figured that Cally’s slow descent into drug-abuse and depression would have been built up slowly, over time. We should have seen glimpses of what was happening…hints, even half-muttered comments by other people on the ship. Instead, it’s presented to us on a plate — a fait accompli. Frankly, I feel cheated…and that is an unusual sin for Galactica.
The Starbuck/Demetrius plot suffers in the same way, albeit to a lesser extent. At least we know that Starbuck hasn’t been herself since returning from Earth…but the obsessive-complusive, self-isolating, self-hating artist/navigator is given a bit too much of a twist. Luckily, the direction manages to paper over the holes in this strand of the plot: refusing to give us full-on, eye-to-eye views of Kara until Sam confronts her, allowing us to share in the make-shift crew’s suspicions about their sort-of-crazy comrade.
The other plots work better because they ARE setting up future events, with considerable style. Zarek’s deft manuvering — and Lee’s grabbing of the political bone — is handled extremely well, and showcasing the same intensity that can be found in 70s political films such as All the President’s Men.
As for Tory…well, that’s the one true home run hit by the plot. This once-professional, unflappable powerhouse is slowly sinking into the mud of the Cylon dark side, succumbing to all these new feelings and sensations she seems to be experiencing…and then blowing Cally out of an airlock without any hint of regret or emotion! So much for not being evil…and kudos to Rekha Sharma for the oily, disturbing portrayal she is beginning to manifest. Tory descending further and further into…what? It’s a question I’m definitely looking forward to having answered…
The Ties That Bind is a trippy, disappointing episode that hits half its bullseyes, and misses the others by miles. Shocking final scenes notwithstanding, this is an unexpected flat tire on the road to the series finale. Let’s hope it’s a one-off aberration.
5
