#final five

Simone Biles flip book, from “The Flippist”.

So many good players went out early due to ridiculously timed swaps and twists (Q, Genevieve, Colby, Christian, etc), while players like Aubry were able to coast to the end when they should have gone home early in the season.

I’m not saying that an underdog winning is bad, but I feel like Aubry didn’t actually do anything to save herself rather than getting lucky.

For instance, she was at the bottom of her original tribe, and was saved by Kyle getting medically evacuated and two swaps that completely tore apart the main alliance on her tribe.

Her feud with Genevieve was built up as something she would play a large role in, but she was actually voted out due to Christian and Devens. She also let herself get peer-pressured into playing her idol.

She would have gone out in eighth place had Ozzy not blown up his own game (which had nothing to do with her), while Devens, Cirie, and Tiffany would have gone home with or without her input.

Final tribal really just felt like “who do we like the most” instead of “who played the best game”.

"finally watched my cameo!!! i still can’t quite believe it but yeah here it is!! i love love love this thank you so much George & Jayden 🥹🥰❤️

#DeadBoyDetectives

#DoctorWho"

5. Ellen Tigh. Okay so here is where I am a fandom old and say I remember the period in which we did not know! I remember Christmas 2008 when it was very in vogue to have one of your livejournal icons be “All I Want For Christmas is for [x] To Be The Final Cylon.” For my part, I wanted it to be Billy, though I also stand by to this day that Dee would have been the best choice. Why didn’t she hear the music with the others? Who knows! But I digress. Ellen. I was actually living on a boat when this episode aired and did not have cable and I literally called home as soon as the episode finished airing and made someone tell me who the Final Cylon was, and after all that I was definitely like “eh.” Is it an interesting moment? Sure. I don’t hate it. I just feel like it doesn’t have much emotional resonance for anyone but Saul, and it’s a little manipulative that, oh, NOW we’re supposed to believe the Tighs are this transcendent love that surpasses lifetimes? And yes, what an interesting character turn that the Tighs are a transcendent love that surpasses lifetimes, but really? Those Tighs? I’ve met those Tighs!

4. Tory Foster. Okay, again, I’m not mad at it, but here’s my thing with Tory: we know very little about Tory before the Cylon reveal, and we know very little about Tory after the Cylon reveal. I do appreciate the scene when they first find out they’re Cylons when Tigh’s like “I will never betray the man I am, I will fight for the Colonies with my last breath, you guys are with me, right?” and everyone is like “Yes, mmhm, totally, we agree” and then Tory goes over to the Cylons the VERY FIRST SECOND SHE IS PRESENTED AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO. Like always a literal laugh out loud moment for me that D’Anna is like “Any Cylons, please, come with us” and practically before she finishes speaking Tory is like “I would like to come with you, for...um. Other reasons” and everyone is just like “Nothing suspicious about this at all, sure, go ahead.” Anyway, no shade to Tory, but I feel like she was always the “and Tory” of the Final Five and I wish the writers had done a little more with her.

3. Samuel T. Anders. My Sam. I love Sam. Sam may be my favorite Battlestar character?? It’s either Sam or Helo. And I think he’s up there with Gaeta and Baltar for top three biggest character transformations over the course of the series. He BECOMES THE SHIP y’all! So good. I love Sam. That being said, as a Cylon reveal, there are better (two in fact). Everything that happens to him after the Cylon reveal, I think, is gold, and I love him being a Cylon for all of that. But I feel like the before-the-reveal groundwork wasn’t laid as well for him as for the other two men. Sure, he was in the New Caprican resistance, and sure, he was on the tribunal, but so too were Galen and Saul, so while he adds to the overall “how funny is it that the entire resistance leadership was Cylon,” individually it’s a little bit overkill. But still, I love Sam, never change, Sam (or, I guess, do, your character arc is one of the things I love about you).

2. Saul Tigh. Is there anyone in the entire fleet who would have been more upset to find out they were a Cylon than Saul Tigh? I’d argue no. And his growling “It’s in the frakkin’ ship!” is iconic. And like, yes, Galen and Sam were in the resistance and the tribunal, but no one, NO ONE, sacrificed more for them than Tigh. I think it’s perfect that Tigh is a Cylon. I’ve seen it pointed out that Saul alone among every Cylon we ever meet, never uses any Cylon abilities at all, save the one moment at the end when they have to do the data transfer, and I love that for him. Him as the voice of “I choose the kind of man I want to be” is really great, and I think he gives the Final Five a good perspective. I also want to say, I know it SEEMS ironic that the resistance leadership is all Cylon, but I also think it’s a reveal that works with what we learn of their character and backstory later. They are opposed to war between human and Cylon, they saw their entire world wiped out, they stopped the Cylon War in the Colonies the first time, OF COURSE they would go to the fucking mattresses when their kids fucked up that bad, even if they didn’t know that’s what they were doing.

1. Galen Tyrol. Oh, Chief! I have a theory, which is that if Chief had been the Final Cylon, he would have been everyone’s guess. He’s PERFECT as a Cylon. I know they’ve said they didn’t decide who was a Cylon until fairly late in the game, but re-watching the series it’s hard to believe they weren’t keeping a Chief-is-a-Cylon as a reveal in their pocket for a rainy day. From the way he was drawn to Boomer, to the way he suspected it at various times in the series, to his conversation with Cavil about whether he’s a Cylon (admittedly the Cylons did LOVE to troll people about whether or not they were Cylons), to all the aforementioned resistance/tribunal stuff, to his mystic connection to the Eye of Jupiter... it all works. They’d also built in a good when-was-he-inserted story (being estranged from his fundamentalist religious parents) which I feel mirrored the key foreshadowing they’d done with the Boomer reveal in the miniseries and not something they pulled off as well with every Cylon (PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES DON’T JUST APPEAR OUT OF THIN AIR?? NO REPORTER EVER NOTICED CAPRICA BUCCANEER SAMUEL T. ANDERS DIDN’T HAVE A BACKSTORY? WHERE DID HE COME FROM??). In conclusion, Cylon Chief is perfect, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

BONUS: People at the time I remember thinking could NOT be the Final Cylon: 1.) Lee Adama because Bill obviously knew him from birth and we had never been given any indication that the Cylons took over the lives of actual people, 2.) Karl Agathon because then Hera would be full Cylon and that seemed to take away from everything they were doing with that storyline, 3.) Gaius Baltar because he wanted it and no one on Battlestar ever gets what they want, 4.) MAYBE Kara Thrace because it was just so damn obvious. But maybe that’s why it would be her? But like they couldn’t spend so much time teasing us with the mystery and then it’s the obvious choice could they?? But like she did maybe resurrect?? Would they really do that??