Battlestar Galactica S4: My Favourite Death Scenes~E6 "Faith" Basestar Six vs. Jean Barolay,

My guess is that if you are as much of a Battlestar Galactica fan as I am you are starting to miss the series pretty badly by now and "early 2009" doesn't in any way sound soon enough to resume watching the final episodes of the much-lauded Sci-Fi network series a/k/a the best science fiction television show evar.

I've been a big fan of Six--especially Caprica Six since the miniseries where she duped Gaius Baltar and gave the Cylon race ALL of the Colonies's military secrets and codes, enabling the Cylons to wipe out virtually the entire human race.

Tricia Helfer who has played Six sublimely too many times to count, first impressed me with the way she expressed herself as an alien "skinjob" who had lived on Caprica with the humans for two years. Just prior to the Cylon attack, Caprica Six had a meeting (we still don't know who with--herself?!) and on the way back she strolled an open marketplace, stopping to admire a newborn baby in it's stroller and making small-talk with the mother. The mother was a little taken aback at Caprica's remark about how such a tiny neck could bear the weight of holding up the baby's large cranium. Just after saying this, the baby's father beckoned the mother who turned her attention away from the infant briefly. In those few seconds, Caprica Six, aware that the human race including this baby was about to be exterminated, snapped the infant's neck, then quickly walked away into the crowd. That scene still resonates with me.

I've not read an official description of what was "supposed" to have been conveyed by the small but deadly gesture that Caprica Six made. Was she simply curious to see how easily a human infant's neck would snap? Was she showing a bit of mercy on the child whom she's believed would shortly be nuked? I still don't know. Perhaps both.

One of the reasons that I am revisiting death scenes is that rarely is one done on BSG just for the sake of it. There is always at least a second level of meaning--perhaps a third or more.  Death, espcially when it comes to a character that may have been on the series for years--like Jean Barolay (Alisen Down , recurring character)  has more impact. The death of a Six always resonate as the model has been part of the series and the actor one of the first to distinguish herself on the show in her portrayal of "Six."

Unsurprisingly my favourite death scenes, which are not in chronological order start with a couple of Sixs-- who got killed a couple times-on camera in the first half of Season Four, the final of the series.

To start, as quoted from Battlestar Wiki: "A basestar

Six sees Jean Barolay and recognizes her as the human who killed her on New Caprica. When Barolay doesn't show any remorse and says she would do the same again, the Six attacks her and smashes her head into the Raptor's hull, which kills Barolay. Anders pounces on the Six and is ready to kill the Cylon when Thrace manages to talk him down. The Six that killed Barolay speaks to Natalie, obviously dealing with psychological trauma from the death on New Caprica that she had not been able to shake. After kissing the distraught Six, Natalie grabs Anders's hand and pulls the trigger on his gun, killing the Six permanently as there is no Resurrection Ship nearby, carrying out a form of justice for the Colonials, who are shocked."

Thanks for capping, creative muse!

Here it is in scene by scene order. Note: I took out many of Sam Ander's reaction shots to the basestar Six's killing of Jean Barolay. I just thought that whole scene was cringe-inducing in how over-the-top actor Michael Trucco played Sam. I understand that Sam has only known for months that he's Cylon and that he kept his shite together until he shot Felix Gaeta in the leg in a gesture of mutiny and shortly thereafter flipped out on the Cylon rebel basestar where immediately after the shooting he chose to accompany Kara Thrace in her attempt to get information from the basestar's Hybrid (brains of the ship). Trucco could take a page from either Tricia Helfer's or Katee Sackoff's book in how to play this scene as really upset, perhaps on the verge of strung out--but pull back a bit so you don't just seem completely insane. If I showed you the stills you'd see exactly what I mean.

P.S. Please do a search in the right column for "Battlestar Galcatica" for all the posts on BSG I've written thus far. Or, search through the cloud tags, located in the rgt. column further down the page for the same.