The revival ofBattlestar Galacticawas one of the best TV shows of the 2000s.
And you’re free to only really have complicated opinions about its series finale.
Daybreak ran to three episodes of runtime, stuffed full of operatic digitality and ambient flashbackery.
Credit: Art Streiber/Syfy/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Witness the fall and rise of human civilization, with regular breaks for shaky-newsreel spacefights and drunken poor-decision sexuality.
Andthencame the finales big twist, which I will nowspoil relentlessly.
This twist is certainly insane.
It draws a bit on originalBattlestar Galacticacreator Glen Larsons notionally Mormon-mythic inspiration.
But thats not what I want to talk about today.
I want to talk about the Chief.
Galen Tyrol (played by Aaron Douglas) was the most relatable and most sorrowful character inBSGs legendary run.
He was the initial everyman, a knuckle-dragging non-com down in theGalacticas engineering bowels.
And Douglas performance was immediately appealing.
He was a low-key fixture, a regular dedicated person with a jobby job keeping the FTL drive chugging.
His role expanded, tracking the grander narratives twists.
He spiraled into depression, began to question his sanity.
In a fit of nightmare madness, he beat up his lovesick associate Cally (Nicki Clyne.)
Out of these brutal depths came a new hope, the possibility of redemption.
On New Caprica, he became a prominent labor unionist, quoting Mario Savio at Berkeley.
They had a son: A new life for their new civilization, a next generation!
Tyrol had a key role in the insurgency during the Cylon occupation.
BSGembraced its loopiest mythological instincts in its final season, and so the Chief turned out to beanothersecret Cylon.
It helped, I think, that discovering his true self ruined him.
His wife Cally got suspicious.
Theres a lighter version of the story where she found out her husbands true self and accepted him.
Then she grabbed the baby, and vented the despondent deckhand toward a frozen death in the airless void.
The downward spiral continued for our poor Chief.
Suddenly a childless widower, he proved an easy mark for his imprisoned ex-girlfriend Boomer.
The Chiefs traitorously tragic actions lead to the final conflict of Daybreak.
ButBSGwas always trickily ambiguous in its depiction of the human-Cylon war.
So, in the midst of the final battle, an unsteady alliance forms.
So this was the point inBattlestar Galacticas run where you stopped praising the show for any notion of realism.
The goo, were told, will connect the Final Five Cylons at a core memory level.
Her words point back toward Cally: Tory never told the Chief the truth about his wifes death.
But its also a sensible load bearing statement, evoking the possibility of a great compromise between warring factions.
Is there anyone in the cast lineup whohasntkilled the wrong person?
Cant all sins be forgiven?
Michael Rhymer helmed many ofBSGs finest hours dating back to the 2003 miniseries.
He directed Daybreak from a script by Moore.
The fate of two entire species is in his hands.
And he uses those hands to grab Torys neck, strangling her til he hears a snap.
And Rhymer crosscuts violently around the assembled characters, tracking a descent back into violent madness.
The Cylons think theyve been fooled, and start firing weapons in every direction.
Some characters dive for characters, others start to fire back.
Any possibility of redemptive diplomacy goes out the window.
and blasts his brains out.
Instead, Starbuck follows an angelic tune in her head and jumps all our favorite characters Earthwards.
The whole third hour of Daybreak has only just begun.
The rest will be sensitive farewells, admissions of love, promises of hope.
And none of it has the singular dramatic effect of the final horrorshow embrace of Tory and the Chief.
Credit Moore for always being willing to throw a dark twist into the shows narrative tapestry.
And Douglas freaky blankness captures something deeper than rock bottom.
I guess theres an angle where Torys killing is justified.
It doesnt feel that way.
Tyrol looks, in fact, like a monster.
On Earth, every surviving character gets some sort of final farewell.
Chief Galen Tyrol is the grand exception.
Everyone else is planning a new life on a new planet.
Hes over it all: Just tired of people, he explains, Humans, Cylons, whatever.
The Chief just wants to be left alone.
And then he walks away, exit screen left, last seen alone forever.
Offscreen lore holds that Tyrol went to Scotland, becoming a near-mythic figure for prehistoric humanity.
This strikes me as debilitatingly sad, a total exodus from hope.
Douglas eerily zen attitude makes it all worse.
He looks emptied beyond melancholy.
Heres a great performance, a great character, the horrific implication that finding peace means losing everything.
I dont love theBattlestar Galacticafinale, but Ill never forget the Chief.
