I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

In which Rebecca fangirls over one episode and goes all Welcome to Night Vale over another. ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD.

Unfinished Business

Now this is how you do a one-off.

This episode is one of Battlestar Galactica‘s signature flashback-a-pa-loozas. In the present day it takes place during one of the Galactica’s regular “dances,” a.k.a. a round of boxing matches where people challenge those they have… wait for it… unfinished business with. The idea is to let people work out their issues via organized physical violence so grudges won’t fester. I like this plan. I think more places should do it.

The flashbacks all take place 17 months ago on New Caprica. Ladies and gents, we finally find out what happened to make Lee and Starbuck (seemingly) hate one another so much.

First, the present day: While Helo and Lee are duking it out in the ring, Starbuck’s just engaged in a little, ahem, personal time with Anders, who says he wants their marriage back. Starbuck counters that she’s just not ready for that, and in response Anders brings up the elephant in the room: Maybe he’s not the one she really wants. Starbuck deflects and heads to the boxing match, where she watches Lee get his butt kicked. His defeat comes about partially because he was distracted by Starbuck; the two of them send approximately 15,975 loaded glances at each other over the course of the episode. Man, Lee. Take a hint from that great cultural touchstone High School Musical and get your head in the game.

Starbuck aims a little not-so-good-natured ribbing Lee’s way, and when he makes to go nurse his wounds she goads him into staying so the two of them can fight.

Now we flash back to New Caprica, where the colonists are planning a ceremony and after-party to celebrate how everything’s going to be great for humanity from here on out, no Cylon invasions or anything, no siree Bob! Dee and Lee have come down planetside for the occasion, as have Starbuck and Anders. Things are awkward between the four of them—Dee and Anders both know their significant others have some residual Feelings for one another—but not overly so.

Meanwhile Adama and Roslin are engaging in a bit of UST themselves (albeit older, more distinguished UST). Adama says the color she’s wearing looks nice on her, and I’m preeeetty sure there was hand-holding going on just out of frame. Back in the present-day Roslin shows up at the boxing match and Adama explains the whole working-out-aggression thing to her. She’s totally into it, because in addition to being a natural leader, a tough-as-nails politician, and a snappy dresser, she’s also a boxing enthusiast. That bit of character detail: Yes. I’m so happy!

Back on New Caprica, party time has begun. Everyone’s all tipsy and happy, including Tigh and Ellen, who have a brief exchange of ultimate cuteness that I cannot handle. Just… just go on without me. I need a minute to gather my feels. Roslin and Adama have a brief chat wherein Roslin seems to convince her grumpy friend that humanity actually can have a fresh start on New Caprica. Back on the Galactica Adama overhears Tyrol telling another mechanic to take a break fixing a downed ship, since he can always do it tomorrow. That sends us back to flashback-land, where we see Tyrol ask Adama whether he and Cally can leave the service and settle on New Caprica. Adama refuses—you’re in the military, you can’ just quit. Apparently present-day Adama is holding on to some residual bitterness, because he steps in the ring and challenges Tyrol to a fight.

Tyrol doesn’t take the challenge seriously: Adama’s an old man. How could he possibly beat a young specimen of masculine virility like Tyrol? Turns out that was a bad move, because Adama takes advantage of his opponent underestimating him to absolutely wail on the mechanic. Back on New Caprica Tyrol has broken the news to Cally that they’ll have to have their baby up on the Galactica. They’ve both accepted the news, but you can tell they’re not pleased by Adama’s decision.

Later, at the celebration, there’s dancing and drinking and fun for everyone, particularly Adama and Roslin, who have laid down off to the side and are smoking something that I’m gonna go ahead and guess isn’t a regular cigarette. Roslin suggests that they leave their cares behind and just enjoy being on New Caprica. Maybe the Cylons come back and maybe they don’t, but either way at least humanity gets a break.

In the present-day Adama and Tyrol are still fighting it out. The tides have turned, and by the time a break is called Adama’s in really bad shape. Doc Cottle says he shouldn’t fight, but Adama doesn’t listen to him. Roslin shows up in his corner and, after telling him he’s frakking insane… proceeds to give him boxing advice. Love it!

We see in another flashback that the morning after the celebration Adama changed his mind and gave Tyrol and Cally permission to leave the service and settle on New Caprica. Their plotline comes to a close when Tyrol finally beats Adama to the ground. There’s complete silence as Adama crawls to his feet and spends a few seconds death-glaring at Tyrol. Then he launches into a William Adama Inspirational Speech (TM). Soldiers should always to be ready to fight, he says. Back on New Caprica I got soft and was too easy on all of you, giving some of you breaks and letting others leave before the fight was over. I let this crew disband, and we paid for it in lives. That’s not going to happen again. He and Tyrol both leave, Tyrol to fix the repairs he put on the back burner earlier and Adama, presumably, to nurse his wounds. Most of the spectators follow them, as Adama speechfying tends to put an end to raucous entertainment.

Starbuck’s pissed, since everyone’s leaving and she never got a chance to beat up Lee. A quick taunt about how he can try to frak another man’s woman but not fight one (hey now, where is this going?) and a remark about Dee having to settle for sloppy seconds fires Lee up, and the two of them head into the ring to finally—finally—work out some of their issues.

So this is what happened back on New Caprica: Starbuck and Lee, both tipsy-edging-towards-drunk, walk out into the wilderness after the party. They talk about Starbuck’s future: She wants to stop flying now that all the good parts of it (like actual fighting) are over, and while she plans to settle down on New Caprica she doesn’t want to get married. That segues into a conversation about their relationship, and they end up having sex. When it ends Starbuck asks Lee what they’re going to do. Lee’s response is that they’ll both tell their respective significant others and take up together, duh. At first I was a little put off by Lee’s attitude here—might you want to, uh, ask Starbuck if she’s OK with that first?—but then she gets into the idea. Each of them stand up and yell into the night sky that they’re in love with the other.

Everything seems great for them now, but of course that can’t last. This is Battlestar Galactica, where happiness is nothing but a set-up for future tragedy. The morning after the sexing Lee wakes up and finds that Starbuck is gone. When Lee heads back to the city he finds out from Adama that she apparently marched right to Anders and asked him if they wanted to get married that same morning. Adama, still in his “You get to resign! And you get to resign! Everyone gets to resign!” mood, has given the newlyweds permission to live on New Caprica.

Wow. So Starbuck woke up the morning after confessing her love to Lee and proposed to Anders. That’s tough. On the one hand, she wasn’t 100% sober the night before—she probably wouldn’t have been so open about her emotions if she were—and when she woke up she was probably scared out of her mind. If there’s one thing we know about Starbuck, it’s that she doesn’t handle emotions well.

Lee’s not much better; when he sees Anders and Starbuck he snarkily wishes Anders good look, ’cause he’s going to need it. He looks like his heart’s been ripped out of his chest. So, for that matter, does Starbuck, who doesn’t exactly look the brushing bride. I absolutely get Lee being angry with her, but it’s what happened next that made me want to smack him over the head with several hard objects. Jilted by the person he wants to be with, he strides up to Dee and plants a big kiss on her. Lee, Lee, Lee. Starbuck may be a bit more obvious in her inability to deal with emotional issues, but you’re not exactly getting a gold star yourself.

Back on the Galactica the two dysfunctional lovebirds are beating the crap out of each other, with Dee and Anders—who absolutely know what’s up—both watching. Ugh. They deserve better than that pair of childish chuckleheads. I kind of want them to say “screw this” and run off together to live a life of competency and pyramid games.

Starbuck and Lee have have fought to a stalemate; neither of them are beaten, but neither of them can really stand at this point either. The fight ends with them hugging it out and saying they missed each other.

On the one hand: I still ship it.

On the other: Damn but these two are bad for one another. They have a metric ton of unresolved issues, and instead of actually talking about them they just let them boil over. Then they fight—usually verbally, this time physically—long enough for them to decide they want to be BFFs again. But nothing actually ever gets dealt with!

I’m not an expert on dealing with relationship problems by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m pretty sure you can’t punch them until they go away.

The Passage

RIP Kat. You were cool, and now you’re dead.

Turns out what’s left of humanity has all but completely run out of food, which is the sort of thing that’ll happen when you have several thousand people winging through space in metal tubes. Normally the food supply comes from processing and food-ifying algae (which sounds… delightful), but something went wrong and now everything is contaminated. There’s some fresh, delicious algae on a nearby planet, but it’s in the middle of a radiation cloud. The episode starts with Athena—who, as a Cylon, isn’t so susceptible to radiation poisoning as humans—piloting a Raptor to the planet and almost dying in the process.

So the algae is reachable, but the radiation level surrounding the planet it’s on is so high that getting to it would kill just about anyone who tried to make it through. Said radiation would also screw with the nav systems on the civilian ships. That’s kind of a deal-breaker because, for Plot Science Reasons, the ships can’t just fly around the radiation cloud; they have to jump into it and back out. And the Galactica can’t handle the task on its own, since the dozens of trips it would have to take to get the necessary amount of food would leave the fleet unprotected for way too long.

As if that’s not bad enough? The cloud basically looks like it’s on fire, so whatever poor schmucks are piloting through it won’t even be able to see where they’re going.

ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD.

The poor schmucks in question will include some of our favorite Raptor pilots, including Starbuck, Lee, and Kat. Lee and Adama must’ve paid attention in kindergarten, because the plan they come up with is basically the buddy system: Each civilian ship will be outfitted with a skeleton crew and assigned a Raptor to fly alongside it and feed it coordinates. In theory it can work, since the nav systems on Raptors are pretty hardy. But it’ll still be an extremely tough job for the pilots, who will have to jump into a visually disorienting GLOW CLOUD, find their civilian ship, and feed it coordinates, all in a matter of seconds.

And then they have to do the same on the return trip.

Oh, and there are five round trips total.

Did I mention if they screw up everyone on their buddy ship dies?

And that all of the pilots are literally starving?

Yeah, fun times. No wonder one of them ends up dead.

Early in the episode we see that tension is still running high between Kat and Starbuck. The animosity between the two of them pops up again when Lee, in a pre-mission briefing, says all the pilots will be required to take stims. That’s a problem for Kat, since she used to be addicted to them, a fact that Starbuck is sure to bring up. Lee relents on the whole “required” thing, but one thing he doesn’t budge on is that any pilot who receives too high a dose of radiation—judged by a badge on the wrist that turns black when you gon’ die—gets pulled from the mission.

On her way to the first run Kat runs into Enzo, a guy she knew before the Cylon attack on Caprica. We learn from him that Kat’s real name is Sacha, and that if the military found out her background they’d kick her out faster than you can say “Enzo is a giant douchenozzle.” He is, too. Kat tells him to leave her alone, but he refuses, calling her “baby” and getting all up in her space.

Ugh. The skeez. Space Robin Thicke should be airlocked.

There’s a brief interlude where Tigh graces the CIC with his wonderful, frowny presence yet again—Grumpy Cat is back on the job, frakkers!—and then the civilian ships and their Raptor babysitters set off. The awesome power of the GLOW CLOUD makes it all but impossible for the pilots to see, and Hot Dog ends up losing his ship.

Poor Hot Dog. The feels, man. And it only gets worse! After a few more runs all the pilots are in really horrible shape, and Kat’s lost one of her ships as well. Back on the Galactica Starbuck sees Kat pushing Enzo away, and later she goes to confront him. We don’t know what Starbuck tells Enzo—I hope there are fewer words and more punches involved—but when we flash back to an argument between Starbuck and Kat we find out what the latter was so intent on hiding.

Turns out Kat stole her identity from some girl who died two days before the attacks on Caprica. If she’d used her own identity she never could’ve become a pilot, because she was drug runner. She and Enzo moved people as well as drugs, and, as Starbuck points out, some of those people could’ve been Cylons using illegal operations as a way to get onto Caprica. Jesus Christ. Is there anyone who hasn’t been blamed for the Cylon attack? Hot Dog’s still clean, right? Starbuck all but accuses Kat of being a traitor and tells her that she’s scum who could only get into the company of “good people” (like herself) by lying. A crying Kat begs Starbuck to let her tell Adama herself, but Starbuck just walks away like Kat’s too pathetic to even talk to.

Starbuck! Hunger can do weird things to a person’s emotional state, so I’ll forgive you. An earlier scene had Tigh and Adama positively giggling because of a stupid joke Tigh made about paper shortages, after all. But still. My heart went out for Kat right there.

The earlier food run put Kat over the radiation limit, but the verbal pummeling she got from Starbuck made her determined to prove herself by continuing the mission. So even though her hair’s literally falling out in clumps, she steals Helo’s radiation badge so she can keep flying. We flash back to earlier, when Kat seemed to accept her “true nature” and engaged in some sexing with Enzo. So on the one hand Kat seems to have given up, but on the other hand she’s willing to die to prove—not to the other pilots, most of whom don’t know her past, but just to herself—that she’s a good person. Ow.

Predictably—y’know, since she can barely stay conscious—Kat can’t find her ship on the next run. But when everyone else jumps ahead she disobeys orders and stays in the GLOW CLOUD. Just before she passes out she finds the ship, sending them the navigational coordinates and saving the lives of the crewmembers…

…but not her own. Upon returning to the Galactica she’s greeted by a round of applause—including from Starbuck, yay!–and then promptly collapses. While lying near death in sickbay she finally reconciles with Starbuck, who says she didn’t mean the nasty things she said about her. In lieu of actually saying “I’m sorry”—hey, she doesn’t handle emotions well—Starbuck leaves Kat a bottle of sleeping pills so she can die quickly and painlessly if she so desires. That’s like roses from her.

Kat’s next visitor is Adama, who’s there to let Kat know that she’s being promoted to CAG. They both know she won’t live long enough to actually do anything in her new position, but hey, it’s a nice gesture. She tells him that there’s a reason he might not want to promote her, but he shoots that right down. Sacrificing her life to save the ship was brave and worthy of being a CAG, and whatever horrible things she’s done in the past don’t change that. He then sits beside her and chats all friendly-like about his family until she dies.

The GLOW CLOUD claims another victim. ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GLOW CLOUD.

Afterwards Starbuck goes to the Galactica’s memorial wall and pins a picture of Kat up. May I just say, Katee Sackhoff: Congrats on your acting this episode. My love of Starbuck just grows and grows.

But it hasn’t been all horrible feels and GLOW CLOUDs this episode. Back on the Cylon Basestar Baltar has figured out that D’anna’s been repeatedly offing herself so she can figure something out about the Cylon God. He asks her whether she sees any of the Final Five when she resurrects. He could very well be a Cylon, he explains, and if he just found out that he is he could stop being a traitor to one race and instead be a hero to another. My first thought was “Awww, that’s kind of sad. He sees himself as so irredeemable as a human that he’d rather just start over as a Cylon.” Followed 0.2 seconds later by: “Waaaaitaminute. Baltar, you jerk. That’s just laziness. You’d rather have it be decided for you what side you’re on than actually determine your loyalties yourself. You want to be absolved of all responsibility toward the human race so you won’t feel obligated to make up for what you did.”

Such. Consistent. Characterization. (Except you, Lee.) I love Battlestar Galactica. Every other show needs to take notes.

D’anna and Baltar, now allies in the effort to find out What the Heck Is Up With the Cylons, visit the hybrid. Baltar sticks his hand in her, er, gel tank (not a euphemism, I swear), and the hybrid grabs his wrist before proclaiming “Intelligence. A mind that burns like fire.”

Baltar’s response? “Yes, I’m here.”

There are times, Gaius Baltar, when I love you.

The hybrid spews some faux-nonsense about “the hand that lies in the shadow of the light,” “the eye of the husband,” and “the eye of the cow.” Baltar and D’anna figure out that she’s talking about the Cybaby Hera and the “Eye of Jupiter,” an object often referenced in the ancient texts that turns out to be a planet, probably one hidden in a shadow of light. Finding the planet will lead to “the hand,” which has five fingers, aka five faces, aka possibly the Final Five. That seems like a bit of a leap, but OK. Baltar and D’anna are shocked to discover that the hybrid seems to be saying there’s a connection between the Cylon God and the gods of humanity. At the end of the scene we cut to the good guys flying through the GLOW CLOUD.

Hmmm. A planet hidden in a “shadow of light.” I wonder if this is significant.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

And with this, I am more than halfway through Battlestar Galactica‘s second-to-last season. Guys. I don’t ever want this show to end. These two episodes are so good.

The Eye of Jupiter

Turns out the planet from last episode is, in addition to being filled with algae, home to a super-special temple that the original thirteen colonists built while on a pit-stop during their journey to Earth. Tyrol—who, along with Anders, Cally, Starbuck, Lee, Dee, and some civilians, is on-planet to process the algae—finds himself drawn to the temple, known as the Temple of Five, by some mysterious force.

Roslin’s ears perk up at the news, since the Temple of Five is supposed to be home to the Eye of Jupiter, a mysterious artifact that will point the way to Earth. Hallelujah! Except then the Cylons, who as of last episode have also been looking for the Eye of Jupiter, show up too. Instead of immediately blowing the Galactica up they ask permission to send a group of envoys on board. No biggie. They’re just going to shoot the breeze, catch up on gossip, talk about genocide. You know. Normal stuff.

The humans aren’t in a position to refuse the Cylons’ request, since they’re outnumbered and can’t run away without abandoning the people on the planet. Plus there’s the small matter of not wanting the Cylons to get their hands on the Eye, which Tyrol and his crew still needs to find.

Handling the negotiations are D’anna, a Brother Cavil, Boomer… and Baltar. Awkward. He tells Head Six that he misses the Galactica, and that even if everyone onboard wants him to die in a fire it’s still his home.

Athena helpfully tells Tigh that they’re about to let the Cylon who shot Adama back into his presence, so he demands that Boomer stay outside during negotiations. That gives her a chance to let Athena, who’s guarding her, know that Hera is alive, and that she’s sick for some unknown reason. She was hidden in Roslin’s school on New Caprica, Boomer tells her other self, so it was probably Roslin’s idea to tell you your daughter was dead. That’s something you do to a thing, not a person.

The situation is hardly less tense in the meeting. Baltar manages to tick Roslin off by bringing up the many times he’s saved the human race from destruction. Yeeeeah, Baltar. While that might be technically true, I’m not sure “I could’ve almost gotten you killed so many other times!” is really going to work in this particular situation. Roslin walks out, so D’anna pitches her idea to Adama: If you give us the Eye of Jupiter, we won’t kill you. But wait, says Brother Cavil, there’s more! We’ll even throw in one free Baltar, shipping and handling included! Adama’s not too keen on the whole “letting the Cylons have the Eye” thing, but you can tell he’s definitely interested in Baltar being handed over to him.

The only one who’s not pleased by the idea is, of course, Baltar.

Adama proposes a counter-offer: How ’bout if you make any attempt to attack us or the people on the planet, we just nuke the whole place, Eye included? D’anna thinks he’s bluffing, but he doesn’t give an inch, and the Cylon contingent—including a panicked, “Holy-frak-I-just-dodged-a-bullet” Baltar—returns to the Basestar.

Let’s catch up with what’s been going down on the algae planet, shall we? First, since finally hugging and making up in Unfinished Business, Lee and Starbuck have begun having an affair. Lee says he can barely look Dee in the eye and suggests that Starbuck divorce Anders so they can finally be together. Starbuck refuses, saying marriage is a sacrament before the Gods—sure, she’s in love with another man and is cheating on her husband and all, but she’s not going to get divorced, geez. Cop out, Starbuck. Cop out. Lee responds that he can’t keep sneaking around like they have been. So he won’t cheat, and Starbuck won’t leave her husband.

Never before have I wanted to hit Lee over the head with a baseball bat more. Not even during Black Market. You frakker! If you’re so morally superior, did you ever think you might want to, uh, be honest with your wife about the affair? Lee is in love with—and sleeping with—another woman. Regardless of whether Starbuck divorces Anders, Dee deserves to be told. Hell, she already knows something’s up. She’s not stupid. But Lee is all “Boo hoo hoo, you won’t divorce your husband. Boo hoo hoo, I can’t look my wife in the eye anymore.” The complete and utter lack of consideration he shows for Dee’s feelings instead of his own is just…. I can’t….

After the meeting with the Cylons goes down Adama orders Lee to blow up the temple if it looks like the Cylons are going to get into it. Then the Cylons cut off their communications, so Lee and Starbuck have to put together a plan to protect the temple all on their lonesome. There aren’t nearly enough marines on-planet, so they have no other choice but to enlist Anders, Mr. Guerrilla Resistance Fighter, to command civilians. Anders is none too pleased, because he has no experience defending fixed positions. Though I’m going to say it’s his wife and her boyfriend marching in and giving him orders that’s really rubbing him the wrong way. He and Lee almost come to blows, but Starbuck steps in and breaks it up.

Back on the Galactica Gaeta has noticed some anomalies in the GLOW CLOUD that indicate the solar system’s star is on the verge of supernova. It could be in a day or a year, but whenever it happens, they’ll only have a short helium flash to warn them to get the frak out of there before the whole place blows up. I’m not one to look for signs, he says, but us and the Cylons showing up at the same planet at the same time, just as the star’s about to go supernova, is just too weird. Adama says he’s not religious, but if this is the work of a higher power they have one hell of a sense of humor.

I’ve been wondering: Is there some truth behind the prophecies and the coincidences other than “Welp, God did it”? Or are we, the audience, just supposed to accept that there are religious forces at work here? Either way’s fine; I just wish I knew so I could stop trying to figure out if there’s some God-related plot twist on the horizon. But hey, that’s what going into a show spoiler-free means. Guess I’ll just have to rewatch once I know what’s up. Oh, the hardship.

Back on the Basestar the Cylons are arguing about what to do. Brother Cavil wants to say screw it and blow the Galactica up, but Caprica and D’anna don’t want to take the chance that they might destroy the Eye. D’anna’s gone behind everyone else’s backs and landed a group of Centurions on the planet; once they’ve taken the Eye, she says, they’ll be free to destroy the Galactica.

That’s made things exponentially more difficult for Anders, who now has actual Cylons he’ll have to fight. Still, he steps up, giving an inspirational speech to the civilians that even Adama would be proud of. Lee tells him he’d make a good officer, and Anders counters “What, a good officer like you? Someone who makes an oath and knows how to keep it?” When Lee plays dumb Anders reminds him that, hello, he’s not stupid. Yeeeeah, Anders! What’s more, he knows his wife, and it’s not like Lee’s the first person she’s bumped uglies with in an extramarital fashion.

Lee’s face. Suck it, jerk.

Also: Anders has really started to grow on me. I wasn’t sold on him at first, because he seemed to be the standard “Let’s introduce this character solely as a love interest” trope, and as much as I love how BSG mixed things up by making that character a guy, not a girl, it’s still not really my thing. But this season we’ve seen more of his personality shine through, and I’ve really started to like him. Lee taking a nosedive into Douchebagville doesn’t exactly hurt, either. Anders looks great next to him.

There’s a quick detour back to the Galactica, where Caprica walks in on D’anna and Baltar plotting to go to the temple and discover the true identities of the Final Five. She’s a bit miffed that their OT3 has been broken up by the two them sneaking around on the side. Sorry, D’anna says, but Baltar and I have our own destiny, and you’re not part of it. Caprica begs them to tell her what they’ve been doing and says she loves them both, but in the end Baltar picks sides and leaves with D’anna.

Something tells me you’ve goofed, Baltar. Maybe you should’ve hitched yourself to the non-religious-fanatic Cylon’s star.

Meanwhile, on the Galactica, Athena has told Adama about how Roslin lied to her about Hera being dead. Adama, royally ticked, gets confirmation from Roslin and refuses to hear her explanations as to why she did what she did. He talks to Athena and Helo, telling them that he hopes they’ll eventually be grateful that their daughter is still alive. But that’s not gonna cut it for Athena, who demands to see Hera.

Starbuck, flying recon, sees the Centurions whom D’anna sent down to the planet. She alerts Dee, who earlier in the episode was being a bit snippy with her (but Starbuck’s boinking her husband. She’s allowed), and promptly gets shot down by some sort of surface-to-air missile. Anders is determined to go after her, but Lee refuses to let him, saying they don’t have enough people to hold their position and send a rescue party. Then screw holding their position, Anders says: They’ll use guerrilla tactics to take out the Centurions. Lee, again, refuses, holding a gun on Anders so he won’t set off to rescue Starbuck.

Up above the planet the Cylons have decided to test whether or not Adama is bluffing about nuking the planet by sending some Raiders out. Roslin and Tigh both assumed there was no way Adama would actually follow through, but now that’s not looking so certain, since he orders nuclear missiles to be armed and targeted. Meanwhile, a beam of light shows up in the temple, making it look like Tyrol must be mere minutes away from finding out where the Eye of Jupiter is.

Will Lee shoot Anders?

Will the Cylons order the Raiders to retreat?

Will Adama nuke the planet before  Tyrol can find the Eye of the Tiger Jupiter?

Will Lee ever stop being a raging jerknozzle?

Find out next time on Battlestar Galactica.

Rapture

To answer the above questions:

No.

Yes.

No.

Annnnd it’s not looking likely.

This episode begins with Adama mere seconds away from firing the nukes, which would obliterate the temple and everything around it, including Lee. The Cylons, except D’anna, are convinced that he’ll fire, so they fold and order the Raiders to turn back. Only D’Anna orders the ship carrying the other!Her and Baltar to keep going on the grounds that Adama won’t destroy the Eye of Jupiter because of one ship. She’s right, and Adama puts away his nukes, but that doesn’t make D’anna’s fellow Cylons any less angry that she blatantly disregarded the group’s decision.

Back on the algae planet Lee and Anders are at a stalemate: Lee refuses to let Anders go rescue Starbuck, and Anders refuses to let his wife go unrescued. “If she dies out there,” Anders says to Lee, “I’ll kill you myself.” His response? “If she dies out there, I’ll let you.”

Lee, you sanctimonious $^*@^(@. You just have to one-up him with your dramatic “Boo hoo hoo, I’m so moral and self-sacrificing and I love Starbuck so much!” It’s a fairly innocuous comment, but my strong reaction to it makes me think I have officially joined the Lee Adama Hate Club.

And this cements it: Lee phones Dee up and orders her and Fischer, her partner, to rescue Starbuck. Dee’s angry—because, y’know, her husband’s asking her to risk her life to save his girlfriend, and don’t even tell me he would do that if Starbuck were just another pilot—but she obeys, because orders are orders. Fischer gets his face shot off by a sniper within seconds, and Dee runs off into the hills.

With Starbuck’s rescue in Dee’s capable hands, Lee and Anders come up with a plan to ambush the Centurions and take ‘em out guerrilla warfare-style, just like Anders wanted to do from the get-go. Unfortunately it’s less than effective, and as they’ll be unable to defend the temple Lee orders Tyrol—who’s made approximately zero headway in finding the Eye of Jupiter—to blow the place up.

Meanwhile Dee’s reached Starbuck’s crash site. She’s alive, but injured in such a way that she’s unable to repair the ship, so she instructs Dee on how to do it. An ashamed-looking Starbuck brings up the elephant in the room by telling Dee that Lee won’t cheat on her, because he’s too honorable, unlike Starbuck herself.

EXCUSE ME?! Except he already did cheat on her! And continues to do so, when you consider that emotional infidelity is a thing! Show, I want you to listen to me, and I want you to listen well: You cannot continue to treat Lee like he’s a paragon of moral virtue, at least not as far as his romance subplot is concerned. Between his growing camaraderie with Anders in this episode and the way Starbuck defends him, it’s like the show just expects us to ignore how Lee is A) cheating on his wife, and B) too chicken to man up and be honest with her about it. Dee has done absolutely nothing to come even close to justifying the crap way Lee is treating her. Starbuck has her issues, too, but at least the show admits that instead of trying to keep her as some golden girl.

Sakes alive, I need a break. Let’s go to another plotline.

Athena has decided that if she’s going to see her baby the only way it’s gonna happen is if Helo kills her and she downloads into a new body among the Cylons. From there, in theory, she’ll get Hera and bring her back to the Galactica. So Helo shoots her. He shoots her dead. Oh my God.

Naturally this upsets Roslin, because now a Cylon with information on their defenses and the situation on the algae planet is back among her own people, and while Helo and Adama are convinced she won’t betray them, Roslin’s not so sure. But Helo doesn’t really care whether Roslin agrees with what he did, since he wouldn’t have had to do it if she hadn’t Cybabynapped Hera in the first place.

Athena’s plan, remarkably, goes rather well: She wakes up in a new body, tells Caprica she wants to rejoin the Cylons, and is taken to see Hera. The Cybaby immediately recognizes her and stops crying, which is weird, since she didn’t recognize Boomer and the two of them are genetically identical. Athena right away figures out what’s wrong with her sick baby and demands that she be allowed to take her back to the Galactica to see a doctor. Boomer objects, saying it might be better if she just killed Hera. Dang, Boomer. I’ve had bad babysitting jobs, too, but I never wanted to throttle my charges! Not literally, anyway. Turn off the baby monitor and take a nap. You’ll be fine.

She does get a nap, of a sort: Caprica punches her out and then snaps her neck, giving herself and Athena a window in which they can commandeer a captured Raptor and take Hera back to the ship. What’s her game here? That’s two fellow Cylons she’s killed, and even though Baltar and D’anna have gone off in their own direction, giving herself up to the humans seems rather extreme.

Speaking of Baltar and D’anna: They, along with a Brother Cavil, have landed on the planet and are on their way to the temple so D’anna can see the face of the Final Five. Last episode the hybrid said it was only the Chosen One who would be able to look on their faces, and D’anna thinks that’s her, but Head Six shows up to tell Baltar that it’s actually him. D’anna expresses fear that seeing the Final Five will drive her mad, but Baltar reassures her that God will guide her to her destiny.

Baltar, D’anna, and Brother Cavil enter the temple just after Tyrol and his crew leave. They disconnect the bombs the Tyrol set up, so Lee’s more than a bit confused when he tries to detonate them and nothing happens. He’s then distracted by the system’s star starting to go supernova. Yeah, an exploding star will do that. Up on the Galactica Adama notes that the supernova will obliterate the entire planet in under an hour. The Cylon fleet nopes out of there, but the Galactica stays, opting not to leave their people behind until they absolutely have to.

Meanwhile, in the temple, Head Six shows Baltar a mosaic that she identifies as the Eye of Jupiter. He tips D’anna off, and Brother Cavil becomes aware that D’anna’s after something other than the location of Earth. Cavil pulls a gun on her, but Baltar shoots him instead, giving D’anna the opportunity to see the faces of the Final Five. She steps on the mosaic and is whisked away to some place where she does see their faces… but we don’t. Because of course we don’t. That would be too easy. Interestingly, D’anna recognizes one of them. Who is it?! Tell me!

D’anna comes out of her trance and collapses, bleeding from the nose and seriously mentally discombobulated. Baltar begs her to tell him whether he’s a Cylon, but she’s too out of it to say anything coherent. And then, seconds later, she dies. And as if that’s not bad enough (I feel like that needs to be this show’s official motto), Tyrol, there to check on the explosives, gets in a badass moment by walking up behind Baltar and pistol whipping him.

Everyone on the surface—including Starbuck and Dee, who’ve gotten the Raptor to work—make it safely back to the Galactica right before the planet goes kablooey. Back on the ship Tigh orders Baltar to be taken, in secret, back to the brig. Then the ship with Athena, Hera, and Caprica lands. Athena makes a token effort of defending Caprica, but in the end there’s not much she can do. She has to rush her daughter to see Doc Cottle anyway. So now Tigh has Baltar and a Cylon locked up. It’s like Christmas!

Starbuck and Anders have a happy reunion, as do Lee and Dee, and I don’t even want to talk about it because if you think Lee rushing up to Dee and hugging her is going to make me any less mad at him you have another thing coming, show, OK?!

While on the algae planet Tyrol noticed that the supernova looked exactly like the mosaic design all over the Temple, meaning the nova, not the mosiac, is the Eye of Jupiter. Roslin and the others agree, and Gaeta adds that at around the time the Temple was being built another supernova took place around 13,000 light years way from the algae planet. It’s possible, therefore, that the original colonists saw the supernova and left a picture of it in the temple to indicate to whoever might come along later that that’s the direction they were going in.

Helo recognizes the supernova from somewhere else, though: Drawings that Starbuck used to make when she was still living on Caprica.

Wait, what?!

Helo asks Starbuck for a picture of her drawing and shows her that it’s exactly the same as the Eye of Jupiter. He asks her where she got the idea to make hers, and she responds that it’s just something she’s been doodling since she was a kid. She then remembers something Leoben told her once: That she has a destiny, and it’s already been written.

Oh man. To quote the cinematic masterpiece Bad Boys II: “Shit just got real.”

The episode ends with D’anna waking up in a new body, only to be told by Brother Cavil that the other Cylons have decided that her model is fundamentally flawed, so the’ll need to “box” her. Her bodies, her memories, everything about her will be destroyed. She tells him she saw the Final Five, and one day he will too, right before he powers her down.

Is… is that it? Is there no more Lucy Lawless on Battlestar Galactica?

In an effort to avoid spoilers, comments on this post have been locked. However, Jill and Susana will be reading comments over at our Facebook page. So if there’s anything you’d like to say in response to this post, head on over this way. Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here.

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Helo and Gaeta are awesome. Lee is not. Baltar gets tortured again. And I’m missing Lucy Lawless already.

Taking a Break From All Your Worries

Gaeta stabbed Baltar in the neck with a pen!

But first some other, less awesome stuff happened. So I’ll recap that too. I guess. *sigh*

(I don’t know what it says about me that my initial reaction to Gaeta going all pen-stabby was “This is the best thing ever, oh my God.” I don’t care to look into it all that much, either.)

It’s a quiet, peaceful night aboard the Galactica, and Baltar is being subjected to sleep deprivation torture in the brig. So, y’know. Not so peaceful for him. At the urging of Head Six he fashions a noose out of his clothes and prepares to hang himself. He balks at the last minute, but Head Six tells him it’s time to find out if he’s really one of the Final Five and pushes his footing away.

He comes to in one of the Cylon’s goop-filled resurrection chambers surrounded by a trio of Sixes. You’d think that means he’s a Cylon, but you can’t fool me, show: Baltar’s brand new body wouldn’t have the same beard as his old one. But he thinks he’s a Cylon… that is, until the Sixes tell him he’s human and push his head under the surface.

While all this has been going on Gaeta, unable to sleep, has gone to see Baltar. The guard tells him only people with direct Presidential authorization are allowed contact with the prisoner. Gaeta says he has authorization, but it’s a lie. We’re not sure at this point why Gaeta wants to see his ex-boss, but we do know that, whatever his reason is, he wants to keep it a secret. He and the guard find Baltar, and the latter gives him CPR, reviving him.

Baltar’s not only been subjected to sleep deprivation, he’s also undergoing a hunger strike. Tigh is of the opinion that they should just let him die, but Roslin points out that they need his intel on whether the Cylons deciphered the Eye of Jupiter and are ahead of them on the way to Earth. Doc Cottle is ordered to make sure Baltar eats, and Tigh goes off to get security cameras installed in his cell. Roslin asks Gaeta what he was doing in the brig, and he says he just thought Baltar might be willing to talk to him. Liar.

Later Roslin goes to see Baltar, and hoboy, do things get heavy. Baltar’s not pleased that he’s being force-fed, and Roslin’s not pleased about the whole betraying humanity thing, even after Baltar defends himself by saying—for the twelve billionth time—he’s saved her life before. Baltar, I thought you were supposed to be smart! The tactic doesn’t work.

Baltar rejects all responsibility for the way humans were treated on New Caprica and says he doesn’t know anything about the Cylons’ journey to Earth. Furthermore, he claims that he had nothing to do with the Cylons getting into Caprica’s defense systems prior to the attack that wiped out most of humanity. Baltar, for frak’s sake. She already knows. Sure, she doesn’t have any proof, but she’s convinced of Baltar’s guilt. He gains nothing by continuing to lie about this. If she really wants to airlock him, which Baltar is convinced she does, she has enough of a reason already. What can she do, airlock him twice? She even thinks things are worse than they really are, as she believes he was actively helping the Cylons when in reality he was just tricked by them.

And that, of course, is the reason he doesn’t tell. Well, one of the reasons. He doesn’t want to work with his captors because he has a major persecution complex, and on top of that explaining how Caprica tricked him would be admitting that he’s not quite the infallible, better-than-everyone-else supergenius he sees himself as. It frustrates me that he doesn’t come clean, but it’s absolutely in fitting with his character.

Roslin then proceeds to absolutely wail Baltar him, screaming about whether he’d recognize even one of the people killed on New Caprica while he was under the protection of the Cylons. Baltar maintains his innocence, so Roslin orders the guards to drag him away and airlock him. They go down the memorial wall with all the pictures, and a panicked Baltar finds a picture of dead person he did know: His former lab assistant. I introduced him to his wife, he says. I’m the godfather of his first child. I’d never harm him.

Roslin doesn’t buy it and orders the guards to take him back to his cell. She was never really going to have him airlocked—it was all a ruse to get him to talk. Even when she loses her composure as epically as she did in this scene, it’s all done intentionally. I’m pretty sure if Roslin screamed at me like that I’d confess to things I hadn’t even done.

Everything else having failed, Adama suggests they interrogate Baltar with the help of an experimental drug that gives its victims a heightened state of anxiety. Baltar will feel like he has to answer honestly or his interrogators will let him die. It’s dangerous, and Doc Cottle for one is uneasy at the prospect, but it’s one of the few options they have left. Roslin’s for it as well. I wonder if she would have been two seasons ago.

The interrogation makes Baltar feel like he’s floating in a body of water in the dark, Adama’s voice his only company. Baltar starts talking about Caprica and how she saved his life when the Cylons attacked. It then comes out that he didn’t know he was helping a Cylon, so while he was involved in the genocide, he wasn’t some cackling, moustache-twirling villain. Adama threatens to let Baltar drown if he doesn’t cough up details on what the Cylons know about Earth. In response Baltar just blathers that he’s a flawed human being who’s made terrible mistakes, but he was just another pawn. He then lets slip that he was at the temple looking for the Final Five, and he thought he might by a Cylon, but now he knows he isn’t. At this point Baltar’s so far gone that Doc Cottle demands the interrogation be stopped.

Now it’s time for another tactic. Baltar’s convinced that he’ll be killed no matter what, so maybe if they make him think they  might let him live then he’ll talk. To do that, they’ll need someone he trusts.

Ohai, Gaeta!

He visits Baltar in his cell, the pair of them being watched by Roslin, Tigh, and Adama through the recently installed security cameras. Gaeta says that if Baltar tells them something, anything, they’ll let him live. He then pulls out the charts he’s been using to plot the course to Earth and says he’s worried some of his calculations might be wrong. Appealing to Baltar’s vanity is the way to go: “Yeah, you did make some mistakes, but I saw them right away because I’m awesome like that. Cylon algorithms are more advanced than ours, but I memorized a few because, hello, genius.” Gaeta overplays his hand when he says Baltar might even get moved into proper quarters if he cooperates. Aware that something’s wrong,  Baltar looks right at the security camera and gives a jaunty little wave. The jig is up!

And then. The pen scene. Baltar tells Gaeta he should’ve known Gaeta would betray him. You told your friends you kept working for me on New Caprica to feed information to the Resistance, he says, but who do you think let you do that? I literally had a gun to my head when I signed that death order, but no one forced you to play both sides. But you’re worse than a traitor. If only your friends knew the truth. Then he whispers something in Gaeta’s ear that causes him to pick up a pen and go for the jugular.

Baltar, what did you say to him? Gaeta, what did you do? What the hell?!

Breathe, Rebecca. Breathe. Adama and Roslin storm into the room, where Gaeta is still freaking the hell out. He has Baltar in a headlock, prepared to stab him again. Rosin tells Gaeta she knows that when he came to see Baltar the other night he was planning to kill him, not interrogate him. That’s when Adama takes Gaeta out with a mean right hook. Doc Cottle says Gaeta missed Baltar’s artery, so he’ll live.

Later, in sickbay, Head Six tells Baltar that it could’ve gone much worse. At least you didn’t tell them you were the Chosen One, she says, whatever that means. (I thought the Chosen One was supposed to see the faces of the Final Five… but Baltar didn’t. Oh, whatever. I can’t try and predict what’s going to happen with this show. It’ll just make the inevitable WTF? moment even worse.)

And now: I’ve put it off long enough. I have to talk about the Lee/Dee Starbuck/Anders stuff that went down this episode. Tyrol shows Lee a new bar that’s sprung up on the Galactica, and Lee starts spending a lot of time there, to the dismay of Dee, who… y’know, doesn’t like her husband coming home drunk all the time. She later calls him on his affair with Starbuck, and he says that there’s nothing going on, and that… oh Gods, it makes me see red just to type it… that “The only problem is that you don’t trust me.”

No. Lee. I’m pretty sure the problem is that you’re cheating on your wife. I get that you’re conflicted, and even that you genuinely do want to do the right thing, but don’t you dare lay your failings at her feet.

Dee sees through the BS, too, and says that she always knew this was coming, even before they got married. And she accepted his proposal anyway because she wanted to have as much with him as she could before the Starbuck thing popped up, which it now has. Then she cuts him loose, saying if he wants to be with Starbuck he can, but their relationship is over.

Anders, meanwhile, tells Starbuck she should go to Lee. With Starbuck and Lee both given a way out from their marriages it looks like this particular drama llama might be heading to a grassy field in the sky. But no. Starbuck asks Lee whether he’ll leave Dee if she leaves Anders, and Lee has the absolute balls to take the high road and say they can’t just back out of their marriages. You mean the marriages you already ruined? I absolutely get that marriages can be tough and you have to work at them, and five percent of me respects that Lee’s willing to put in the time to make his relationship with Dee work. But the other 95 percent is just “You’re doing this to make yourself feel better about yourself, she gave you an out, she understands you love someone else more than her, consider someone else’s feelings instead of your obsession with your own ‘morality’ for ONCE, you FRAKKER.”

OK, OK… I’m done.

Lee tries to commiserate with Tyrol about their respective relationship problems, but it turns out Tyrol just had a normal fight with Cally and isn’t in love with someone else, so that’s not much help. You’d think it’d make him realize that maybe the rift is his marriage is so big that it would be better for everyone involved to just let it go, but no. He tells Dee that he loved Starbuck, and maybe there’s a part of him that always will, but he married her. And what’s more, she’s good for him and he needs her.

But anyway. Lee and Dee decide to try and make it work. And Starbuck and Anders decide to make it work. And I’m about to decide to make it work between me and a punching bag, because I am done with this plotline.

The episode ends with Roslin and Adama talking about Baltar. Roslin says she didn’t even really want intel on the Cylons, she just wanted an admission of guilt, and she was willing to inflict pain to get it. But you won’t get that admission, says Adama, because Baltar sees himself as a victim. Two and a half seasons in and Baltar’s true personality—self-serving, cowardly, weaselly—is fully revealed. The only thing to do now is give him his trial.

The Woman King

Well whaddaya know. I just started liking Helo. I guess any affection I used to have for Lee has to go somewhere else, and Helo’s at least earned his sense of moral superiority.

Since Tigh came back as Galactica’s XO Helo’s been put in charge of Dogsville, the civilian refugee camp that takes up part of the hangar deck. It’s not a job that he enjoys doing: There are too many people and not enough resources, and 300 more civvies are about to come aboard. Of those, 50 are from Sagittaron, the colony where everyone’s super-religious and refuses to have any truck with new-fangled things like doctors and medicine. They’re the pariahs of the Battlestar Galactica world; nobody likes them, and they pretty much keep to themselves.

Assigned to help Helo out is Dr. Michael Robert (hi there, Senator Kelly!), a friend of Tigh’s who’s in charge of Dogville’s medical situation. He’s frustrated by the Sagittarons’ refusal to let him even examine them, especially given that they appear to have brought an epidemic of Mellorak sickness to the ship with them. It’s easily treatable, but only if the patient is given medicine within the first 48 hours. Needless to say, the Sagittarons aren’t lining up to get the shots. Mellorak sickness is transmittable through human contact, so while it’s confined to the Sagittarons now, with hundreds of civilians living in cramped quarters it won’t take long to spread.

Helo gets a visit from Portia King, a Sagittaron woman whose son Willie Dr. Robert tried to examine earlier in the episode. She tells him that Willie started getting sick, so against her better judgement she took him to see the Doctor, but he died anyway. She’s convinced that he killed him; he’d been sick for less than 12 hours, she says, which should be well within the timeframe for the medicine to have worked. Helo asks Dr. Robert about Willie, but he brushes off the mother’s suspicions, saying her son must’ve been sick for longer.

Later, in the shipboard bar, Helo and the rest are gossiping about the Sagittaron situation. Tyrol has no pity for them, calling them “backwards fools” and giving them crap for not having helped the resistance on New Caprica. Lee tells him to knock it off, since Dee comes from Sagittaron, and she’s standing right there. Oops. Dee’s not offended, though, and says she more reason than most to be mad at her fellow Sagittarons and their medicine-hating ways. Dee and Lee get their cute on, and Starbuck’s there giving some epic stinkeye in the background.

So how’s that whole “work on your marriages and stop being hung up on each other” thing going?

Back in Dogsville the Sagittarons are convinced that Dr. Robert’s killed another man, a person whom he sneakily immunized without consent. Helo objects to this clear breach of medical ethics, but Dr. Robert said he was doing his rounds and the guy was screaming in pain—what was he supposed to do? The Doctor’s being really defensive here. Also the man had been sick for more than 48 hours, which would mean he really shouldn’t have been curable, and therefore Dr. Robert shouldn’t have used any of the limited supply of medicine on him. Something doesn’t add up.

Helo takes his concerns to Adama, who brushes him off and grumpily tells him to stop making unfounded accusations and get back to work. Tigh corners Helo in the hall afterwards and goads him for always being on the minority side of any conflict. He has a point: Helo was the only one who didn’t approve of the plan to commit genocide agains the Cylons, and now he’s the only one who thinks the Sagittarons might be something other than paranoid crackpots. It’s an interesting character dynamic: Like everyone else, he’s concerned with fighting the good fight and doing the right thing, but he so often finds himself on a completely different wavelength from his friends and allies.

While Dr. Robert was on New Caprica fighting the resistance, Tigh says, you were snuggling up with your Cylon wife. Helo hauls off and punches him, but Tigh doesn’t seem to mind: I’m guessing he’s gotten people mad enough to punch him quite a few times.

Hera, meanwhile, has gotten sick, and therefore needs a vaccination shot from Dr. Robert. Helo’s uncertain about letting a possible murderer jab a needle into his daughter, but he’s not sure he’s right about Dr. Robert—at this point, neither are we—so he follows Athena’s advice and lets him give Hera the shot. Later Helo tells Athena that he thinks he was put in charge of Dogsville as punishment, that Tigh was right and everyone judges him for always being the voice of dissent. Athena basically tells him to suck it up and do his damn job. Even if they do hate him for who he is, it’s not like she doesn’t have to deal with that every day.

Helo goes to poke around in the Dr. Robert’s New Caprica medical records. Turns out the guy has a major hate-on for Sagittarons: Of the ones he treated ninety percent died, while Capricans, for example, had only a six percent mortality rate under his care. Doc Cottle finds Helo snooping and refuses to listen to his findings. Helo says that if Cottle will just do an autopsy on Willie King he’ll stop it with the accusations, but he gets the wind taken out of his sails when Doc Cottle says he already did an autopsy and there was nothing suspicious about it at all.

So it looks like that’s it… until Dee comes down with something and goes to Dr. Robert for treatment. Uh-oh. Ms. King warns Helo that his friend might be in danger, and Athena tries to talk him out of going to check on her—she’ll be fine, Dr. Robert’s not a murderer, it’s all over the ship how you’re listening to the Sagittarons, etc. Helo fires back that Athena only seems to care about injustice and prejudice when it affects their family. But Helo’s determination that Dr. Robert is a racist d-bag who’s killing his patients isn’t Helo projecting his own issues about Cylon discrimination: The doctor’s doing something wrong, and he’s going to stop it.

Dee’s conscious but in a bad place. Helo tries to take her to Doc Cottle, but Dr. Richard stops him. Helo outright accuses him of poisoning people, and there’s a fight between Helo and the guards that looks like it could turn nasty. That’s when Doc Cottle and Tigh show up. Turns out Doc Cottle lied about performing the autopsy on Willie King, but he’s done it now (how conveeeeeenient), and Helo was right all along. Dr. Robert defends himself, asking why he should waste time and medicine on people who don’t want his help. With the Sagittarons looking on he accuses them of being like “worms crawling on a hot rock” who are going to die anyway, so they don’t deserve treatment. He reminds Tigh that he hates Sagittarons, too, but Tigh says there’s something he hates more: Being wrong. He orders Helo to arrest Dr. Richard, who tells Helo that he didn’t kill Dee because she’s “one of the good ones.”

Adama summons Helo into his office and apologizes to him for completely dismissing his concerns before. You’re the “lone voice in the wilderness,” he says, the one person who’s never stopped trying to keep everyone else on the right path.

After this scene ends there’s a minute left in the episode, and it says something about how this show has warped my mind that I was half-convinced it would end with Hera suddenly dying or a Cylon fleet showing up or a killer clown popping out of a garbage hatch and stabbing people. I am not used to happy endings anymore, not even temporary ones.

For a recap of what went on the rest of the episode: Roslin tells Zarek about her plans to give Baltar a trial. He objects, saying a trial will cause civil unrest so bad that it will bring down the fleet. If she insists on doing it, fine, but he recommends instituting martial law. Roslin refuses and later expresses to Tory her concern at just how scared Zarek looked. Same, Roslin. Civil unrest is Zarek’s jam. He just be expecting something really bad for it to freak him out so much.

Athena goes to visit Caprica in her cell and tells her her best chance of survival is to help Roslin by providing evidence of Baltar’s treason. Athena isn’t Caprica’s only visitor, though: Head Baltar shows up to ask her why she gave herself up to the humans. He thinks it’s because, deep down, she wants to be one of them. But the trick to that is only thinking about yourself. It’s a pretty innocuous scene; what makes it great is that Roslin is watching and listening to everything in the room, including Caprica talking to Head Baltar. She tells Tory that she’s noticed Caprica talking to someone or something else before.

Is this just a red herring, or is Roslin going to so some investigation and find out about Head Baltar? And then maybe Head Six? Will Baltar find out about Head Baltar? Will Caprica find out about Head Six? Will we finally find out what’s up with these frakking head ghosts?

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

Two sub-par episodes in a row. But sub-par for Battlestar Galactica is still great by the standards of most other TV shows, so I’ll let it slide.

A Day In the Life

This episode was so boring. Black Market was a scourge upon humanity, but at least it didn’t make me want to fall asleep.

It’s the wedding anniversary of Adama and his late ex-wife Carolanne. Tigh knows that this is the one day a year his friend pulls out his old wedding photo and boards the angst train, so he tells him he can take it easy. Adama refuses, determined to go about business as usual even though Carolanne keeps talking to him. But in an artsy, flashback way, not a psychotic Head Six way.

The two of them parted on bad terms, with Adama leaving his two boys to be raised by her. Serving as a counterpart to their relationship is that of Tyrol and Cally, who’ve started fighting since coming back to the Galactica. Cally wants them to spend more time with their kid. Tyrol isn’t willing to decrease their workload. Yada yada yada.

Tyrol and Cally go to look at an airlock that was damaged during the rescue from New Caprica and end up getting trapped there. The doors will open back up if they manage to fix a tiny leak in the hull, but in the process of applying a patch they actually make the leak grow larger. They have minutes to live and no way to escape.

While all this is happening Carolanne is giving Adama flack for various things: For trying to remember his crew members’ names, for liking Laura, for creating a “godlike façade” for himself, etc. He goes to talk to Roslin about Baltar’s trial. Her plan is to set up an organizing committee full of legal experts who can figure out the nitty-gritty, like will it have a jury and what colony’s law it’ll be under. The committee will need a chairman, someone who knows right from wrong and has a good head on their shoulders. She suggests Lee, and Adama says he’ll ask him about it.

When Adama approaches his son Lee is in the briefing room giving his pilots an angry speech about how they’d better stay on task and stop talking about how many days it’s been since the Cylons attacked, since they only need to make one mistake to completely screw humanity over. Adama comments to his wife that Lee is like both of them: Proud, stubborn, and angry. Carolanne tells him to let Lee know how proud he is of him, not as a commander, but as a father.

After the briefing Adama initiates a conversation with Lee, who asks him how he’s doing. Adama’s response is to say that it’s been a tough morning and then go on to tell him about Roslin’s legal plan. Adama, you bonehead. Lee clearly sees that something’s up with you and wants to talk about ~feelings~. Lee is interested in being the legal coordinator—he says at one point he wanted to take after his grandpa and be a lawyer, which Adama didn’t know—but says that being the CAG doesn’t leave him enough time.

This pair of Lee-related scenes put me in mind of something Susana says that’s absolutely true: The writers, at this point, haven’t figured out who Lee is. Compare that to Helo, with whom the writers are consistent about what a decent, upstanding guy he is. Even when the writers focus on Helo’s morality, like they did last episode, it doesn’t seem out of place like it does when Lee’s is highlighted. The reason for that is that even when Helo’s not fighting the (old) man, even when he’s just in the background of a scene and has three lines, you get the sense from what little he says and does that he’s totally the kind of guy to help little old ladies across the street and buy Girl Scout cookies even when he’s already been suckered into buying twelve boxes. It’s not like Lee, who’s alternatively presented as the moral firebrand, the more empathetic Adama, and the guy who’ll cheat on his wife and blame her suspicions on her lack of trust.

At this point Adama and Lee get the news about Tyrol and Cally being stuck in a leaky airlock. It would take more time to cut through the blast doors than the two of them have left, and the explosive power needed to blow the windows would kill them, too. The only way to maybe save them is to send a Raptor outside the airlock and shoot Tyrol and Cally out through open space into it. It’s a dangerous plan, but it’s the only option left. Tyrol and Cally have a lovey-dovey moment before the airlock opens—nothing like looking death in the face to fix your marital problems. Tyrol apologizes for making Cally work so much, and Cally reassures him that they’re going to make it out of the airlock alive and raise their son. Surprisingly, the plan goes off without a hitch, and Tyrol and Cally are taken to recover in sickbay.

Lee goes to visit his dad and ask what’s going on with him. Adama explains about his wedding anniversary, and the two of them have an emotional conversation about how Adama leaving screwed his sons over more than he knew, since their mom turned into a drunkard who’s heavily implied to have beaten her sons. Adama asks Carolanne whether it’s true, and she goes off an angry rant about how horrible a husband and father he was. You pride yourself on being a leader of men, she says, but when it came to the hardest decision of your life, you messed up. We never should have gotten married, but you can’t accept that, because admitting you made the wrong call would throw all your other decisions into question.

Yeah, no. There is no way I buy that any part of Adama’s subconscious would come to the conclusion that, since he married someone he shouldn’t have, all the tactical military decisions he’s made might me wrong. It’s stupid, first of all, and it’s not in fitting with his character. It’s like every time there’s a one-off episode that needs some personal conflict the writers decide to give Adama some BS self-doubt revelation. See: “Boo hoo hoo, I feel responsible for the Cylons attacking Caprica because of a recon mission I went on“.

You have enough drama already, Battlestar Galactica. You don’t have to invent more.

Back in sick bay Adama watches as Tyrol and Cally reunite with their baby and reconcile their differences. Yawn. Meanwhile Lee, in his room, sees that Adama’s made him a present of Grandpa Adama’s old law books.

Roslin stops by Adama’s office to give him a book that she thinks he might like. Adama asks her whether she ever thinks about New Caprica, specifically about that night they got all flirty during the groundbreaking ceremony and what might have happened if the Cylons hadn’t come back. Roslin says that humanity probably wouldn’t have lasted under Baltar’s presidency and asks him whether he’d have stayed on the Galactica or settled on the planet. He says he doesn’t know, and the conversation takes a giggly turn on Roslin’s part.

Adama goes off on this tangent about how easy it is to lose track of what it means to really live, and Roslin immediately calls him on the fact that he’s talking about their relationship. He’s trying to skirt around the issue and be all subtle, and she’s all “No. We both know what we’re talking about. This is a no-BS zone.” Adama cops out of the conversation, saying the Cylons did come back so everything else is a moot point, but Roslin’s having none of it: I’ll be back in a few days, she says, and we can talk more then.

Love. Her “You know you want a relationship. I know you want a relationship. Stow your emotional constipation, Bill Adama, because we are doing this.”

The episode ends with Adama putting the picture of his wife away, telling her it’d be easy if he could hate her but he can’t, and saying that he’ll see her next year.

The boringness is finally over. Han Solo dance party!

Dirty Hands

This is by no means a bad episode, but I find myself wanting to forget it for Adama and Roslin’s sakes. Holy character inconsistency, Batman!

We start with three conflicts on the hangar deck. One: Seelix applied to be a fighter pilot but was turned down even though she aced the exam because she’s in a “critical position” doing dirty work behind the scenes. Two: A Raptor out on patrol goes wonky because its fuel is filled with imperfections as a result of screw-ups on the tylium refinery ship.

And three: One of the deck hands is Ellen from Supernatural, which is a conflict inasmuch as it made me want to scream in shock.

The Raptor crashes into the Colonial One, luckily causing no deaths. Adama goes to see Roslin and offer her the use of “one of my beds” until her quarters are repaired. Bill Adama, you smooth talker you. The pair of them talk about the refinery ship: It used to be ship-shape (sorry, I’m writing this on Friday, you know how it goes), but recently the captain, Xeno Fenner, has started complaining about things like working conditions and overtime compensation. Adama and Roslin scoff at the insane notion that people are working under horrible conditions and this Fenner dude might want to—gasp— make sure they get treated better. Thus begins this episode’s mischaracterization.

Adama explains that they have enough tylium for the whole fleet to jump one, maybe twice, if the Cylons show up, so Fenner and his crew just need to buckle down and start making more fuel. Fenner’s not pleased by that cop-out answer. The only way we ever get heard is if there’s a problem, he says, so maybe we should start making more problems. Like the book says, if you hear the people you’ll never have to fear the people.

The book he’s quoting is Baltar’s My Triumphs and Mistakes, which his lawyer’s been smuggling out of the brig. Quoting a banned book, in addition to threatening to mess with tylium production, is enough to spur Roslin to order Fenner’s rest on the grounds of extortion and interrupting vital services during a time of war.

Turns out the book has another fan: Cally. She tells Tyrol about it at dinner, how it talks about the pilots and officers coming from rich colonies and the “knuckle-draggers” like herself, Tyrol, and Seelix coming from the poor ones. Tyrol’s not buying it. He gets a call from Adama, who tells him that his old union buddy Fenner’s been arrested and he’ll need to step in and oversee operations on the tylium ship. Cally asks Tyrol if he ever thinks about the union back on New Caprica, which he was the chairman of. Tyrol says he does, but that New Caprica is gone, so there’s not much point. Cally points out that, while the union may be no more, the workers who were a part of it are, only now they have no one to stick up for them.

Roslin goes to see Baltar and demand that he hand over the new pages to his book. She even says she’s known about them forever and has stopped them getting out to the people, which is a blatant lie. She’s doubtful of his new “man of the people” persona, as well she should be: He’s clearly playing the populace, getting public opinion on his side in advance of his trial. Baltar gets searched by the guards and gives up the pages. Head Six tells him that everything’s going to be OK, but he’s clearly nearing the end of his rope.

Tyrol goes to the refinery ship and meets the foreman, Cabott, who’s excited Tyrol’s there because of how he and his union helped the workers so much on New Caprica. Tyrol’s response: “Yeeeeeah, about that. How ’bout you just give me a tour of the ship instead?”

The reason the ship’s not been working at anywhere near normal levels is that the workers have sabotaged it by “losing” vital pressure seals. Cabott explains that when Fenner is released and working conditions improve he’s sure they’ll “find” them again.

Tyrol explains the situation with the seals to Adama and Roslin, the former of whom says the ringleaders should be locked up for sabotage. Tyrol defends the workers, saying they could have easily injured him or contaminated the fuel on purpose. All they want is better working conditions and for the failing machinery they use to be repaired. It’s like slave labor: The people on that ship are stuck there, with no control over their lives. Most of them haven’t had a day off since the original attack on Caprica. If Roslin and Adama release Fenner and at least agree to talk about figuring something out with the workers, everything will go back to normal. They brush off Tyrol’s concerns, saying they won’t respond to extortion and that the fleet is full of people working in horrific conditions. That’s just how it is. Roslin then orders that Cabott be arrested.

I’m sorry, but I call BS. I’m not saying Adama and Roslin are bleeding hearts, but it is way out of character for both of them, especially Roslin, to not give enough of a frak about how thousands of people are apparently suffering to at least look into it. Especially since they know Tyrol’s a hardworking, trustworthy man with a history of dealing with workers’ rights issues! It’s not like he’s some random dude complaining about how there are no Reese’s cups in the break room vending machine. I’d think Roslin would acknowledge that Tyrol knows what he’s talking about instead of saying “Well, everyone has it bad. A bunch of people in the Colonial One have to sleep in their offices instead of their bedrooms! Our officers don’t get their legally managed lunch breaks! Tigh hasn’t been able to get real liquor for weeks!”

Heck. Roslin, as we saw in Epiphanies, has experience negotiating with unions! Even if she thinks Cabott and the rest are idiots who’ve been duped by Baltar, the Roslin I know would at the very least check that an Industrial Revolution-era impoverished working class isn’t popping up on her watch.

Later on Tyrol goes to see Cabott in the brig. He was locked up and tortured by the Cylons on New Caprica, so now that he’s back in a cell he’s having major trauma-induced flashbacks. Tyrol presses him to reveal where the seals are so he can be released, and he eventually caves.

Tyrol goes back to the ship, replaces the seals, and starts the machine back up. On his earlier trip he talked to Milo, an eleven-year-old grease jockey, but this time around he sees that the place is positively teeming with child workers. He tells Roslin about the situation, and she defends it by saying it’s just parents passing on their skills. Roslin. It’s child labor. You are not naïve enough not to see that. I get that the kids still need to work because there are so few people left in the whole human race, but you might want to check that they’re not doing dangerous factory jobs that could easily kill them.

This episode’s labor-union-and-workers’-rights premise is great in theory, but in execution it’s gone so, so bad.

Tyrol tries another argument to get Roslin to throw the workers a bone: The way things are now, people will have to go into whatever jobs their parents had. There’ll be no social mobility, no option to choose one’s own career. Roslin thinks he has a point and says they’ll draw up a list of everyone in the fleet with a work history appropriate to working in the refinery. Then they’ll pull from that list and people will take turns.

The plan sounds nice enough, but it soon hits a snag. One of the people on the list is Daniel Noon, a teenager who supposedly has “experience with heavy machinery” because he spent a summer working on a farm to save up for college. He tries to get an exemption because, y’know, he won’t know what he’s doing on the refinery, but Tyrol says he has to go.

Then comes a very good scene when Tyrol goes to ask Baltar about his book and his supposed lower-class upbringing. Tyrol says he thinks all of it is crap, to which Baltar responds “Obviously my analysis of a bifurcated society scares you.” Um, Baltar. If you’re going to cast yourself as a “man of the people,” throwing around phrases like “analysis of a bifurcated society” in your posh British accent ain’t the way to go. He explains that was born and raised as a farm boy on the poor colony of Aerelon but from the age of ten he trained himself out of his natural accent so that people might assume he was from one of the rich colonies, like Caprica. He left on his 18th birthday, leaving behind his family, his heritage, everything. The aristocracy wants to give lower-class people like you and me the illusion that they have everything they could want, he says, but there’s always going to be one set of rules for the rich folks and one set of rules for everyone else.

I believe he’s telling the truth about his heritage, but I also believe he’s only associating himself with the “lower class” because it’s convenient for him to do so. What he says about the poor standing up for themselves absolutely makes sense, but does he believe it, or is it all a ruse to garner people’s sympathy? Maybe it started as a ruse but he’s managed to convince himself that he really is some sort of savior of the people. This is a man with a remarkable aptitude for self-delusion, after all. It’s impossible to tell how sincere he’s being, and I love it.

Back on the tylium refinery everything runs smoothly for a few minutes until a section of the conveyer belt goes haywire. Someone needs to crawl under it and pull out a bit of detritus fast before the whole place explodes. Tyrol’s hands are too big to wrap around it, so the teenage not-farmer Daniel offers his services. He fixes the belt, but in the process he’s seriously injured. That’s all Tyrol needs to decide that the workers are going on strike.

Tyrol’s deck crew decides to strike in support: They’ll work the hours and peform the tasks they’re assigned, but they’re not working overtime and won’t be on call for whenever someone needs them. Tyrol’s taken to the brig, where Adama confronts him about how you can’t strike when you’re in the military. Well, you can, but it’s called mutiny, and mutineers get shot. Tyrol says the lower class is being abandoned to its fate and that the deck crew, in striking to support them, isn’t putting anyone in danger or abandoning their posts. Adama doesn’t see it that way, though. You’re in the military and you have to do what you’re ordered to do without hesitation, even if they’re things you don’t want to do, he says. He threatens to shoot Cally and the rest of Tyrol’s deck crew if he doesn’t call off the strike, so Tyrol folds.

Hold up. A grand total of two episodes ago Adama had a grand revelation that the general opinion about the fleet’s behavior—especially pertaining to how it treats civilians—isn’t always right, so when there’s a lone dissenting voice he should probably listen to it. And now Tyrol says the fleet is committing an atrocity, and Adama’s response is “No, you have to obey even order we give you, and if you don’t I’ll shoot your wife.” Come the frak on.

On the positive side, after Tyrol’s released Adama says he can go talk to Roslin, presumably because it’s twigged with them at least a little bit that maybe he actually has a point with the whole we’re-mistreating-our-workers thing.

Tyrol tells Roslin that they’re creating a society where people are drafted into service based solely on where they’re born. Even if they choose people to work on the tylium ship because they have experience in manufacturing, they still have that experience because they come from a poor colony. He suggests that they spread out the dirty jobs like cleaning, hauling, and low-level maintenance by making the rich people take their turns. Furthermore, they should set up a formal training program to cultivate a larger pool of people who can do the high-stress jobs, so it’s not the same people doing them with no time off. Roslin says they can talk about that second part later, but for now they have to maintain their current work force. The union will have to give ground on that. Tyrol responds that union doesn’t exist anymore, that it died on New Caprica, and Roslin says that it needs to exist to keep society from becoming polarized between the entrenched political class and the disenfranchised underclass.

Well that was an awfully convenient realization for her to come to with four and a half minutes left in the episode. It’s like the writers remembered “Holy crap, we only have two scenes left and we just remembered that Roslin has experience fighting for the disenfranchised and isn’t a totally evil person who doesn’t care that people are suffering. Time for a moral deus ex machina!” I know that Roslin must’ve been coming around ever since Tyrol told her that kids were being trained to do their parents’ jobs, but it seems absolutely ridiculous to me that it’s that that brought her to the negotiating table, not the fact that good ol’ even-headed Tyrol equates their treatment to slave labor.

The episode ends with Seelix, having been denied her chance to be a pilot at the beginning of the episode, getting told by Starbuck that she’s been accepted into Viper training. It’s sweet, but not sweet enough to erase the foul taste left in my mouth.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

Oh my God, Starbuck. Oh my God, Baltar. Oh my God, Mark Sheppard! We are back on track!

Maelstrom

Starbuck, noooooo!

Deep breaths, Rebecca. Now that I have reigned in my emotions somewhat, let’s start the recap.

Starbuck’s been dreaming every night about her favorite art subject, which we now know is also the Eye of Jupiter. Also appearing in her dreams—sometimes, we see in the first scene of the episode, in a sexy capacity—is Leoben. Helo suggests that she see a psychiatrist, but she refuses.

She does, however, consent to see an oracle who’s living in Dogsville. The oracle is known to interpret dreams, and interpret dreams she does, though it’s not the interpretation Starbuck wants to hear. The oracle tells her that Leoben was right, that Starbuck does have a special destiny. She then proceeds to recite verbatim the creepy speech Leoben had in his very first episode about how Starbuck’s mother hurt her because she believed suffering was good for the soul.

The oracle adds that Starbuck’s mother was trying to teach her a message through abusing her, but Starbuck’s gotten the message wrong. Leoben knows what the true message is, and he’s coming to show her the way. Starbuck, frightened and pissed off, leaves, carrying with her a small statue of Aurora, goddess of the dawn, that the oracle gave to her.

Later Anders and Starbuck, who are ostensibly still together even though Starbuck doesn’t seem to want to spend much time with him, talk about Starbuck’s mother. She told her daughter that she was different from the other kids, that she needed to be a warrior, that anger would keep her alive. Starbuck tells Anders about a prank she played on her mother—putting plastic bugs in her shoes—and how her mother retaliated by slamming her hand in a door. Throughout the entire episode Starbuck keeps flashing back to that moment in her childhood. She even hallucinates seeing her younger self.

The fleet is parked above a planet so they can refuel, and Hot Dog and Starbuck are on patrol in case the Cylons show up. Then one does… but only Starbuck can see it. She flies after the Raider down into a storm system that looks exactly like the Eye of Jupiter. As if that’s not creepy enough, she keeps seeing Leoben. She loses the Raider and has to turn around, since if she gets too close to the planet’s surface the pressure will crush her Viper like a tin can.

When she gets back to the Galactica Tyrol tells her that her Viper wasn’t damaged in the chase, which is weird, because she distinctly felt the Raider hit her. Furthermore, when reviewing her Viper’s dashcam she doesn’t see the Raider. Racetrack says what everyone’s thinking: Maybe it wasn’t there at all. But she doesn’t say it in a malicious way, like Kat would’ve. It’s very matter-of-fact. “Hey, maybe you’ve started losing your marbles. It happens.” I’ve started to love her. I hope she doesn’t die.

Starbuck’s, er, lapses in sanity have made their way to up to the Old Man, who asks Lee whether he’s going to ground her. Lee’s not sure; she’s an emotional basketcase, but her identity is all wrapped up in being a Viper pilot. Who knows what it would do to her if she weren’t one anymore? Adama tells him that it all comes down to whether she can do the job.

Turns out she can, or at least Lee thinks so. He tells her he trusts her eyes over the DRADIS any day and that if she said the Raider was there, then it was there. You’re no more of a raving lunatic than you’ve always been, he says. What happened with Leoben on New Caprica just stressed you out. Take it easy or you will start seeing things.

At exactly that moment, as it happens, she does see something: Liquid dripping onto a floor in the shape of the Eye of Jupiter. Later, while looking over her Viper with Tyrol, she sees her younger self, bruised and bloody, sitting in the cockpit. It majorly freaks her out, like hallucinating tends to do, and Lee comes to talk to her about it. She tells him she’s voluntarily stepping down as a pilot, as she can’t trust herself behind the wheel (joystick?). So trust me, Lee says. I’ll fly your wing.

It’s a great scene between them. I love how Starbuck, knowing how bad she’s gotten, refuses to fly. She’s always been a hot-shot pilot more than willing to take insane risks with her life, but here she’s deciding to give up what she loves because she won’t take risks with her fellow pilots’ lives. And Lee’s giving his emotionally frakked up, traumatized friend exactly the sort of support she needs.

And then it’s ruined with relationship talk. Starbuck asks him how things are going with Dee, and he says they’re better than they’ve ever been. So we’re back to where we started, Starbuck says, and that’s probably where we’re going to stay. Neither of them look altogether pleased with that. Dammit, show! You teased me with a possible lack of relationship drama and then you bring it all back up again. How did I ever ship this?! It has brought me nothing but pain!

Starbuck and Lee go out on patrol, and Starbuck yet again sees the mysterious Raider. She takes off after it, and everyone watching from the Galactica has a look on their face like they think that she’s finally snapped. Lee goes after her, but he’s too far behind and there’s too much cloud coverage to keep visual contact.

Starbuck’s Viper is hit by something and she gets knocked out. She wakes up in her old apartment in New Caprica, where Leoben is there waiting for her. She accuses him of playing mind games, but he says he’s not. This is about her destiny. Starbuck says she doesn’t have one, but Leoben reminds her of the Eye of Jupiter symbol, how she’s always been drawn to it. She wants to fly into it and “cross over,” he says, but she’s afraid of the unknown. Of death. She’s been afraid ever since the last day she saw her mother.

Then Leoben whisks her, and us, away to observe the last conversation Starbuck and her mother had. It’s six years ago, and Starbuck has just become an officer. She’s the first person in her family achieve that honor, in fact. But her mother’s far from impressed and berates her for being 16th in her class and getting so many demerits. You’re special, she says, and I’m not going to let you piss that away. Starbuck responds that she’s not special, and she’s sorry her mother never made anything of her own life but she refuses to make up for that. Mama ‘Buck tells her daughter that she’s a quitter and always has been.

Then, to pour some salt in the wound, past-Starbuck sees a letter saying her mother has terminal cancer. She tries hold her mother’s hand, reaching out with the same hand that was smashed in the door all those years ago, which you can tell takes some real emotional effort on Starbuck’s part. But her mother rejects even that small gesture and tells her off for being sad. So Starbuck leaves, never to see her mother again.

Starbuck explains to Leoben that she didn’t come back, not because she hated her mother, but because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to watch her die. Leoben tells her it’s not too late and shows her through a door where Mama ‘Buck is laying in bed surrounded by her daughter’s old school papers and drawings, including one of the Eye of Jupiter. Something’s about to happen, Starbuck tells her mom, the thing you were always trying to prepare me for. But I don’t know if I can do it. Mama ‘Buck reassures her that she can because she’s her daughter—becaus every abuse she threw Starbuck’s way was to prepare her—and then dies.

See?, Leoben says. There’s nothing so terrible about death after all. Now that you’ve faced it you’re free to become who you really are. She tells him he’s not Leoben, and he responds that he never said he was. He’s just there to help her discover what’s in the space between life and death.

But… “the space between life and death.” That’s what D’anna was exploring! Who is this guy if not Leoben? And is it just this mental Leoben who has some mysterious other identity, or is it the real Leoben, too? After all, they both have this fixation on Starbuck’s destiny. And speaking of Starbuck’s destiny: Does she know the thing her mom was trying to prepare her for, whatever it is? What is it? Why does this show torture me so?!

Starbuck regains consciousness and Lee finds her again. They have just enough time to turn their ships around before they both die… but Starbuck doesn’t. She sees a brightness that looks like what D’anna saw in the Temple of the Five, tells Lee to “let me go” and that “they’re waiting for me,” and flies into the light. Her ship blows up and she (supposedly) dies.

I say “supposedly” because there’s no way in hell Starbuck’s actually dead, if only because if Starbuck dies I’m pretty sure I would’ve heard about it. I may be a BSG newbie, but I fly in geek circles, and cultural osmosis is still a thing. Plus her hand was resting on something that I’m pretty sure was an eject lever before her ship exploded.

But even if Starbuck’s not dead, it’s still an incredibly sad scene. Everyone thinks she lost it and killed herself. And there’s no way anyone could know differently, because all she ever told anyone was that she was seeing things. No one else knows about the stuff that happened that means she’s not just nuts, like the oracle knowing what Leoben said to her.

No one except Helo, that is, who at least knew about Starbuck’s connection to the Eye of Jupiter. But will he think it’s significant enough to look into? Will he think Starbuck’s “death” is anything other than an open-and-shut case of a soldier with a history of emotional issues going through trauma and finally snapping?

C’mon, Helo. Follow through on this for me.

Adama insists that they’ll send a rescue crew out to get her, but Lee say there’s no point: Her ship blew up, and there was no parachute. She’s dead, Jim.

Earlier in the episode Starbuck gave Adama the golden Aurora statuette she got from the oracle. She told him that Aurora symbolizes fresh starts and maybe he could use it as the figurehead for his model ship. After finding out about her death he does put the figure on his ship… and then he smashes the whole thing to pieces and starts sobbing.

What the everloving heck? What did Starbuck see? Where did she go? Where did she come from, Cotton-Eye Joe? The oracle gave Starbuck the Aurora figure like it has some significance, but she gave it away. So what does it do? What’s Starbuck’s destiny? How will she get back to the fleet? What’s happening?!

The Son Also Rises

After Starbuck’s not-death (I’m convinced) last episode, everybody’s having a pretty rough time. We see Adama crying while he looks through her file, which includes this adorkable birthday card. Anders is perpetually drunk and unwilling to accept the fact that his wife is dead. And Lee’s grief is starting to affect his work performance. But everyone still has to do their jobs, and for the military folk that includes preparing for Baltar’s trial.

Adama is randomly selected as one of the five judges, but Racetrack has landed a less fun job: Shuttling Baltar’s lawyer Mr. Hughes around the fleet. She doesn’t have to do it for long, though, since someone plants a bomb in her Raptor that ends up killing Hughes and leaving her wounded.

At a press conference Roslin is asked whether maybe, since the trial has led to a bombing and all, it should be cancelled. Her response is an excellent, more eloquent version of “What the frak did I just hear? Get it through your thick reporter noggins. We are not going to change our legal system because of terrorists. Roslin out. *mic drop*”

But she still has to find a new defense attorney, and what’s rest of humanity isn’t exactly teeming with them. Luckily, there’s a relatively inexperienced lawyer by the name of Romo Lampkin who’s chomping a the bit to get his hands on the fame and glory that’ll come with representing the most hated man alive and

is

that

Mark

Sheppard?

Of course he plays the skeezy lawyer. Of course.

Meanwhile Lee’s been moved from CAG duties to running Romo’s security detail. Adama explains to Lee—who sees it as a less of a transfer and more of a demotion—that he’s in no shape to fly and that he’ll remain on the Galactica until he “works this [his grief about Starbuck's death] out.” Lee has a snit fit, big surprise, like Adama isn’t hurting, too.

Romo slowly warms Lee up with his no-BS attitude. He insists that he be allowed to see Baltar without anybody listening in and name-checks Lee’s granddad, who was apparently Romo’s mentor. What is it with Grandpa Adama all of a sudden? He’s everywhere! They reach a compromise where Lee can sit in if he signs a confidentiality agreement, and Romo—his little duckling Lee trailing behind him—goes to see his client for the first time.

Baltar is, shall we say, less than impressed by his Matrix glasses-wearing savior, though it’s less to do with Romo than the fact that the whole trial is a charade. Something tells me Romo’ll have  a shot at swinging things his way, though. Baltar tells Romo that the key is Caprica Six, that the prosecution can use her to destroy him and that he needs to talk to her and tell her how much he loves her. Normally I’d say that’s solely a self-serving move on his part, but Baltar’s really started to lose it. He’s all twitchy and out-of-sorts. His defenses are starting to come down, and it’s becoming less and less easy to see what’s an affectation and what’s real.

Romo, quite the smooth operator, quotes Baltar’s book, and Baltar smiles like he’s a kid on Christmas. And suddenly: Baltar feels. He’s always thrived on people thinking well of him, people thinking he’s a genius, and now everyone hates him. All his smarts don’t matter if he’s a traitor. Before there were people praising his brilliance left and right, but now little crumbs of praise are all he has to live on.

It’s like Tigh recedes into the background plot-wise and Baltar swoops in to take his place. But don’t worry, my bald Grumpy Cat. You will always be my number one.

After interviewing Baltar Romo asks Lee to take him to the Colonial One to pick up some papers. Technically Lee’s not supposed to go, because he’s been grounded. In the “You’re a pilot and you’re not allowed to fly right now” sense, not the “Go to your room!” sense. Though it kind of goes seem like the latter. Romo rightfully points out that if Lee’s going to be his bodyguard he really should be there to guard his body, and Lee agrees to go with.

And then, what ho! Another assassination attempt. Someone planted a bomb in the Raptor Lee and Romo were set to fly in, but luckily for both of them Romo’s cat—which he even takes to meetings with the President, because he’s Mark Sheppard and he’ll do what he wants—is an escape artist who bolted out of his carrier and hid under the ship. While Tyrol tries to get the cat he finds the explosive. But who set us up the bomb?

The fact that Lee almost got blown to itty-bitty pieces makes Adama less than pleased, and he tears his son a new one for letting Romo lead him around by the nose. I’m not exactly sure how else he’s supposed to do the job you told him to do, but whatever. Adama is right in pointing out to Lee that letting Romo get on a ship that was rigged to explode is kind of a big goof on his part. It turns into this whole thing where Adama judges Lee for not getting his shit together after Starbuck’s death and Lee judges Adama for supposedly not grieving as much as him.

Back to Romo: Roslin explains to him that he can interview Six, but it has to be under the same conditions the prosecutor had, meaning Adama’s going to be looking in. Romo points out that that’s unfair because Adama’s one of the judges, but a small thing like illegality isn’t enough to make Adama sit the interview out. Roslin’s a bit more cooperative, ordering Tory to get Romo the papers she was dragging her heels getting to him.

And now: The interview. Earlier in this episode we saw a mentally unhinged Baltar frantically searching for something he’d misplaced, and now we know what that is: His pen. It may seem like a small thing, but without it he can’t write his book and get his thoughts out to the people. It’s the only thing that gives him some agency in his own life and makes him anything other than a prisoner. It turns out Romo stole the pen so he could give it to Caprica Six and say it’s a gift from Baltar. See, Caprica’s all ready to say to hell with the narcissistic jerk and throw him under the bus. They didn’t have a particularly good breakup, remember. Romo tells her a story about his ex, about how living with her was hell but he loved her so much that living without her was exponentially worse. He tells Caprica that Baltar asked about her and said he loves her—which is true—and that he wanted to give her his pen because he’d do anything to be with her again. Which is a big ol’ lie.

But it absolutely works. It warms Caprica up to Baltar and sets her against Roslin. Baltar wasn’t technically allowed to keep the pen, and now Caprica won’t be either. The common tribulations of pen ownership bring them together. Romo, you slick bastard, you. Roslin sees it, too: Watching him win Caprica over, she says it feels like “part of our world just fell down.”

Romo and Lee have a talk about lawyer-ing, specifically about Grandpa Adama and how he dedicated his life to defending “the worst of the worst” so he could understand what it is that makes humanity so flawed. Romo’s followed in his foosteps, working with the fallen and the corrupt, which is a really noble way for Romo to say “Yeeeah, I’m not so big on morals m’self.” He makes the whole thing sound really appealing to Lee, who looks ready to say screw you to his father’s expectations and go to the Romo Lampkin side of the Force.

And then it’s time for assassination attempt number three: A bomb is hidden in a box of files delivered to Romo, and the only reason he ends up injured and not dead is that a guard sees what’s about to happen and pushes him out of the way. Lee visits Romo in the hospital and brings with him a bag of tidbits that Romo’s stolen, because he’s evidently a bit of a klepto. There’s Roslin’s eyeglasses, because without them she’ll look less serious in the courtroom. There’s a button from Adama’s jacket and a flip-flop owned by the prosecutor. Romo explains that his parents were murdered when he was really young, so he grew up stealing to survive. He won’t steal anything from Lee, though, since he’s lost enough already. He also managed to steal back Baltar’s pen from the guards and asks Lee to get it back to him.

But there’s one other thing Romo stole: A metal disc that Lee recognizes right away as a bomb component. He lifted it from Kelly, aka Benny from Supernatural, who earlier in the episode was having a crisis of conscience about how he sends pilots off to die all the time and can’t bear to see them risking their lives to shuttle Baltar’s attorneys around, too. Even though he’s the one who’s putting the pilots in danger by rigging their ships to explode. Kelly, you yutz.

Adama’s decided to reinstate Lee as the CAG, since once Kelly’s arrested Romo’s not in as much immediate danger. But Lee asks if he can stay on, not as Romo’s bodyguard, but as his assistant. Adama disapproves and points out that Lee’s a pilot, not a lawyer. But that argument doesn’t work so well when Adama, an Admiral, is doing double-duty as a judge. Lee goes all daddy issues and accuses Adama of wanting to keep him from being a lawyer because of his desire to have his legacy as a pilot secured now that Zak and Starbuck are dead. Adama says he refuses to see his son working against him during the trial (he’s supposed to be an impartial judge, but who’re we kidding?), but when it comes right down to it he’s not willing to outright order Lee not to help Romo.

On the one hand: Lee, you already have a job! You can’t just quit the military!

On the other: But Adama already offered to let him try out his lawyering in a way that would have suited him. This isn’t about Lee wanting to do something else. It’s about him doing something that his father doesn’t want him to do.

On all hands: Get over yourself, the both of you. Adama: Lee’s not going to do whatever you want. Lee: Stop being a whiner and just accept that Adama’s not the supportive father type. Let it go. You are grown-ass men. I don’t know if I can handle another season of Adama Drama. (Click, darnit. I spent a good five minutes making that stupid gif, and you are going to see it.)

Lee goes to the memorial wall and pins Starbuck’s picture up, a visual symbol of how he’s accepted her death, even if he’s still grieving from it. Anders shows up as well, and the two of them have a bit of a shy, friendly bro moment before Lee leaves Anders alone with the picture of his late wife.

The episode ends with Baltar being delivered the pen that Romo had stolen from him. With it is a note. It reads: “There is no greater ally, no force more powerful, no enemy more resolved, than a son who chooses to step from his father’s shadow.”

I can think of nothing I’ve liked more in the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica than Romo blatantly manipulating an oblivious Lee. Lee’s all ready to ~stand up to his father~ and ~defend the people no one else will defend~, and in the meantime Romo’s just giggling his tuchus off about the schism he’s caused among his enemies.

Hey, Lee, you think maybe you want to whet your lawyering teeth by defending, say, an accused thief? A murderer? Hell, a serial killer? Anything other than the man who’s accused of betraying humanity and causing a near-genocide? He’s in so over his head. It’s glorious.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

My reaction to the season three finale can best be summed up with this gif. Holy God. I couldn’t sleep after watching that!

Crossroads: Part 1

We start the two-part episode that killed my heart and soul with a dream sequence: A snappily dressed Roslin (dang, Laura) in the Lords of Kobols’ opera house looking for Hera. Athena’s there as well, and they both go chasing after the Cybaby, but it’s Caprica who picks her up. Ooooh, the symbolism.

But that dream’s not the only fairly innocuous-seeming but also completely creepy thing that happens this episode. No, that award goes to the Weird Ship Music. It first makes an appearance when Tigh’s hanging out in the bar trying to tune into a radio station. He can hear snippets of a song, and so can Anders, but no one else can. It can’t be as harmless as it looks, since this is the season finale—it’s got to mean something big. It’s a brilliant scene to have early in the episode, as it puts the viewer off-guard without them even knowing what there is to be scared of.

Meanwhile both Romo and prosecuting attorney Cassidy are doing some last-minute prep work for Baltar’s trial. Tory tries to get Cassidy to charge Baltar with genocide, but she refuses because there’s no concrete evidence, and who’s the attorney here, me or you? Step back, Presidential assistant. Between pressuring Cassidy and refusing to give Romo important papers last episode, Tory’s been way out of sorts and confrontational lately. And later in the bar she hears the same Weird Ship Music that Tigh and Anders heard.

Before the trial gets underway Baltar makes a surprising discovery: People think he’s magic. Ohkaaaaaay. He is looking more than a bit Jesusian (blatant Jesus imagery: never forget), but when a lady visits him in the brig and acts him to bless her sick kid, it’s a little weird. And she’s the fifth person to do that, not to mention dozens of people who’ve written letters. In an uncharacteristic move Baltar doesn’t play along with someone thinking he’s all that and a bag of chips. Instead he tells the lady no, I have nothing to do with God, I have no special powers. He only says he’ll “do [his] best” to placate the lady as she’s being dragged away by the guards. Head Six tells Baltar that the woman sees him more clearly than she sees himself (which echoes something the Oracle said to Starbuck about Leoben… hmmmm. What’s the connection between Head Six and Leoben? Tell me!) and that even if he’s killed his name will live on forever. But Baltar doesn’t seem to care. He’s just… resigned. He’s accepted that the show trial is probably going to end in him being executed.

The fleet’s a mere six jumps away from the Ionian Nebula, which should be the next clue to the location of Earth. So far the Cylons haven’t been following them, but Adama, ever-cautious, orders Racetrack to lag behind at the fleet’s previous jump point for a full 12 hours to make sure humanity’s really in the clear. It’s a good call, since later in the episode five baseships show up, and Racetrack only just makes it away to warn the fleet.

Roslin suggests that they ask Caprica about how they’re being tracked, as she has a really strong hunch that the Cylon will do anything to keep Hera from being captured. She convinces Adama that it can’t hurt just to ask, so he sends Tigh off to politely inquire as to whether Caprica might be willing to assist them, please.

Ha, no. Caprica cooperates and tells Tigh that the Cylons noticed that the fleet’s fueling ship has a unique radiation signature, so maybe they’ve figured out how to track that, but it’s not like Tigh’s going to say “Thank you ever so much!” and leave. Instead he confronts her about other intel she might have. Head Baltar shows up and tells a scared Caprica not to be intimidated, that he’s just—oh God, no, Ellen feels—projecting his manpain about how he lost someone on New Caprica and he didn’t even realize how much she meant to him until she was gone. Caprica inserts the knife and twists, asking Tigh whether he made Ellen feel like a burden while she was alive and telling him humans always destroy the ones they love.

Tigh punches her, and she calmly turns around and punches him right back before the guards shut her down. Please, God. I want a Caprica-Tigh fight scene. Verbal or physical, I don’t care. Give me this.

Meanwhile Baltar’s trial has started. Cassidy gives a good, if somewhat boring, opening statement about all the people who died on New Caprica because Baltar actively helped the Cylons. Romo’s speech—about revenge, mob rule, Roslin’s personal vendetta, how Baltar had no choice but to surrender—is several hundred times more interesting. Mark Sheppard could yell the phone book (or the Twilight books, hey-o!) and I’d still sit in rapt attention. The man has a good angry voice.

It’s time for Tigh to take the stand, and he is D-R-U-N-K drunk. It’s something Lee noticed earlier in the episode, when he was standing on the sidelines of the conversation about Caprica and being thoroughly ignored by everyone. Jeez Louise, Adama. I know you’re ticked about Lee helping Romo, but generally the child is the one who does the silent treatment, not the parent. Anyway. Tigh. He testifies that Baltar never did anything to try and stop the Cylons, and since he drunkenly mentions Ellen she becomes a fair topic for Romo’s cross-examination.

Oh God. I do not like where this is going.

Romo asks Tigh about his suicide bombing activities and then moves in for the kill, getting him to admit he killed Ellen because she was a Cylon collaborator. The upshot, Romo says, is that Tigh has a personal vendetta against Baltar, since if he’d stood up to the Cylons Ellen wouldn’t have had to die. It makes Tigh look unhinged and vengeful—which, y’know, is true—and he’s not helped by the drunkenness and how he keeps muttering about music no one else can hear. Romo, you wonderful bastard.

After the trial Adama leads a thoroughly sloshed Tigh back to his room. Adama could easily be angry—Tigh was one of the defense’s star witnesses, and he showed up to the trial three sheets to the wind. But when Tigh apologizes for embarrassing Adama he says it’s no big. “You’re my oldest friend,” he says, “You never embarrass me.” Bawwwww!

It looks at first like Roslin’s testimony will do better at condemning Baltar than Tigh’s did. Roslin’s not drunk, for one, and she equivocally tells Cassidy that Baltar ordered the execution of 200 people. During a break Romo tells Lee and Baltar that they need something that can discredit her on the witness stand. Lee says he knows something but proceeds to be all coy about what it is, like he hasn’t thoroughly thrown in his lot with Baltar already. Romo tells Lee, Mr. I Believe In the Legal System And What It Stands For, that  if he truly believed in the law and wasn’t just trying to stick it to his dad then he’d reveal any information that might help the case. Daddy issues: Activated.

Back on the CIC Lee asks Adama how Roslin’s doing, since she looked “rattled” in court. Is this the Battlestar Galactica equivalent of “Don’t you think she looks tired?” from Doctor Who? Adama says they can’t talk about the trial outside of court and then proceeds to wail on him for telling Romo about Ellen (which he didn’t—he just said that she died, which anyone could have known. Unless I’d mistaken Tigh hadn’t told anyone that he killed her, though Adama might have put it together).

Adama calls Lee a liar and a coward who doesn’t even have the guts to go after someone himself, instead letting the sleazy lawyer do it. And all for Baltar, who doesn’t even deserve a trial. Lee takes off his wing pin—quitting, essentially—and says he won’t serve under a man who questions his integrity.

Lee, how can Adama even hear you from all the way up on your high horse? Won’t serve under a man who questions his integrity my shiny metal butt. Newsflash: One is not allowed to question the morals of one’s subordinates, apparently. No one tell early-season three Helo. Or Tyrol. Or Tigh. Or Starbuck. Or anyone Adama’s had a beef with in the past. Adama fires back that he won’t have an officer under his command who doesn’t have any integrity, so nyeh.

I swear to God, you put these two together and they start acting like two-year-olds.

Back at the trial Lee asks whether he can conduct Roslin’s cross-examination himself, because Adama’s very Ned Stark-ian statement about taking responsibility for cutting people down got to him. Baltar, the voice of reason now that his life is on the line, objects with an appalled “You’re not seriously going to let my security guard…?” But sure, Romo. Go ahead and let the assistant who’s never questioned a witness and has only been reading up on the law for a matter of weeks handle this very pivotal moment in what’ll probably be the most important trial of your life.

But Lee pulls through, if by “pulls through” you mean “manages to throw Roslin under the bus.” The dirt he has on her is that while she had cancer she was on chamalla, which is illegal and has been known to induce hallucinations. As far as I can tell the real-world equivalent would be that Roslin used to be a pothead?

But then he goes in for the kill…

DON’T DO IT, LEE! DON’T DO IT!

…and asks Roslin whether she’s still on chamalla, even though Roslin begs him not to. Sigh. And they used to be such good pals. Roslin admits that she is currently taking chamalla. It looks like Lee’s won this round until Roslin says why she’s back on chamalla: Because her cancer’s come back.

Boom, baby! Who’s the the asshole now, Lee? You screwed up! You screwed up big time!

Also: Roslin’s cancer is back?! Crap.

At a press conference Roslin explains that it’s been back for about a week and that it’s had no effect on her ability to do her job so far. Tory snaps, telling the reporters to “pick over another carcass,” which makes Roslin dismiss her and later dress her down. We also get this beautiful exchange between Roslin and a reporter:

Karen: Madam President, how long do you have to live?
Roslin: How long do you have to live, Karen?

Yeah, Karen. You just got burned. You got burned with the fire of a thousand Eyes of Jupiter. Go sit in a corner and think about your stupid question and your stupid, stupid self, Karen. Karen.

Meanwhile Lee’s in hot water with Dee, who’s leaving him because of his epic douchebaggery. That’s when Lee goes full-on mansplainer and talks to Dee about important “the system” is and how Roslin having hallucinations is relevant to her testimony. And both those things are true! But if he thinks his actions—heck, the system in general—is some noble thing as it exists now he is rocking some serious naïveté. As always, Lee picks and chooses when to be moral and then gets all offended when someone calls his virtue into question. He says that he wishes he could make Dee understand, and she said that she does—that’s why she’s leaving.

The episode ends with Helo saying he senses that “there’s a storm coming” and Tigh freaking out because the Weird Ship Music is “in the frakking ship!”

Oh God. OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGodohGodohGod.

Crossroads: Part 2

This episode pulled my soul out through my nose and then wrung it like wet bit of laundry, so of course it started with an adorable scene between Adama and Roslin, because if there’s anything this show likes it’s maximizing the emotional turmoil. It’s the morning of another trial day, and Roslin doesn’t want to get out of bed—I feel you, girl. So she calls Adama up so he can yell at her to get up and at ‘em. Roslin and Adama starting their mornings by calling each other. I can’t. Too cute.

Other characters start out their days differently. Tyrol, lying in bed, hums the Weird Ship Music before getting up to wander aimlessly around the halls. And Anders and Tory have just finished a session of boinking. I can’t even be upset at him for it, even though his wife just died. He’s obviously not in a particularly good place right now emotionally. Tory hears the music and mentions it to Anders, who’s quite surprised because he thought no one else could hear it. Later Anders—who’s now training to be a Viper pilot like Starbuck was, be still my heart—finds out Tyrol can hear it, too.

Lee suggests to Romo that, since they’re losing Baltar’s case, they should go for a mistrial. Looks like now that he’s betrayed Roslin he’s fully embracing his inner evil lawyer. How morally upright is it to request a mulligan just because you’re losing, Lee? Baltar outright refuses, first because he doesn’t get how they’re losing—Romo explains that the way they trumped Tigh and Roslin on the witness stand makes the judges hate them more—and second because he can’t go through another trial. I believe that second one–it looks like he’s about to crack.

Meanwhile Roslin, who’s in sick bay for more cancer treatment, has the same dream about looking for Hera in the opera house as she did last episode. Like before, Athena’s there as well, though it’s Caprica who takes the Cybaby. This time Roslin sees that Caprica is with Baltar, and she screams herself awake just as Athena, also in sickbay, does too. So they were dreamsharing, Inception style. The two of them go see Caprica, who’s very unsettled to find they were all in the same dream together. Caprica says that what happened shouldn’t be possible, and that she didn’t know why she was trying to reach Hera, she just knew she had to protect her with her life.

Mama bears for the win!

Tigh takes his concerns about the Weird Ship Music to Adama, who obviously doesn’t believe that the Cylons are sabotaging humanity with a rockin’ tune. He knows Tigh’s losing it, but he doesn’t want to hurt his best friend, so he humors him by saying he’ll look into it.

The trial is back on, and this time it’s Gaeta on the witness stand. Cassidy asks him about Baltar signing the death warrant and Gaeta straight out lies, saying Baltar signed it with no objections when in reality the Cylons literally had to put a gun to his head. Gaeta, what are you doing? Are you so willing to see Baltar found guilty that you’ll commit a felony, even though it looks like Baltar’s going to lose anyway? Caprica, who was there and saw Baltar object, is on the Galactica! Normally I’d say that wouldn’t be a problem, since she’s not actually testifying and there’s no way the judges would take her word over his anyway. However. Gaeta’s bad decisions have a way of coming back to bite him in the ass.

Baltar loses it, yelling that it’s no secret how Gaeta tried to stab him through the jugular with a pen, “and you missed! Butterfingers!” That pen scene is a gift that keeps on giving.

Romo gets up to cross-examine Gaeta, and at this point I’m screaming “Run, Gaeta, run! This man obliterated Tigh!” But Romo declines to ask him any questions, since, as he tells Baltar, there’s not much they can do about Gaeta deciding to perjure himself. So he’s off the hook… for now. But I’m thinking this particular plotline isn’t gone. Oh, Gaeta, you sweet summer child.

With Gaeta’s testimony Baltar is well and truly screwed, so Romo decides to go for a mistrial on the grounds that one of the judges—that would be Adama—has already decided that Baltar’s guilty. To prove this Romo makes the unorthodox move of calling Lee to the stand to testify against his father. Lee objects, but if the judges allow it—which they do—he can’t really refuse.

Romo starts off by asking Lee whether Adama told him that he doesn’t think Baltar deserves a trial—and he did say that, so the mistrial is completely legit—but he veers off into different territory when he asks whether Lee himself thinks Baltar deserves a trial. The defense attorney tries to cut him off, seeing as it’s not Lee’s place to offer an opinion, but Adama wants to hear exactly what his treacherous son has to say on the subject of Baltar’s innocence, so he’s allowed to go on.

And, look, I know I’ve been very critical of Lee this season, but this is one barn burner of a speech he gives. Baltar made serious mistakes, he says, but there was no treason. Who, in his position, could have done any differently? He collaborated, sure, but so did hundreds of other people. Roslin issued them a pardon, so why not Baltar? Hell, since the Cylons attacked who hasn’t been let off the hook for doing bad things? Helo and Tyrol killed the Pegasus officer who attacked Athena. Adama put New Caprica in his rearview mirror when the Cylons showed up. Lee himself shot down a civilian vessel all the way back in the very first episode. That sort of leniency is necessary given how few people there are and how few options humanity has. It’s completely bogus to hold Baltar to a standard of justice that no one else has to live up to. The system is broken. This case is built on anger, vengeance, and bitterness, but most of all on shame. By airlocking Baltar everyone hopes to forget all the bad things they did. It might work, but it’s not justice.

Damn, son.

And an additional congratulatory gif to Romo, Lawyer Superstar, who’s known all through the trial that Lee would deliver the goods and manipulated the situation to get him in prime speechifying position.

The possibility of a mistrial abandoned, the judges go off to determine Baltar’s guilt. Roslin goes up to thank the attorney for her hard work, and I think she knows she lost. And lose they did: Three of the five judges found Baltar not guilty. The courtroom erupts into chaos, with several people trying to attack Baltar, who right away insinuates himself into a gaggle of reporters and starts talking about how he knew he would be acquitted, but the trial was still a complete farce. After being escorted away from the growing mob he tells Romo that he thinks he’ll go on a book tour, and maybe Romo would like to be on his team?

The charm. The confidence. The blatant narcissism. Baltar’s back, baby.

Romo politely declines, and as he and Lee leave Baltar has a minor crisis. What will he do now that the trial is over? Where will he go? He’s been found innocent, sure, but everyone still hates him. Romo tells him that, as much as he hates to use a cat metaphor—oh, who are you kidding, Romo, you brought your cat to a meeting with the President, you love cat metaphors—he thinks he’ll land on his feet. He then abandons the cane that he was using in the courtroom—you didn’t need it at all, you magnificent bastard—puts on his Matrix sunglasses and (forgive the atrocious slang, but it really is fitting here) swags off into the sunset.

So. Baltar’s been found innocent. I agree with the verdict. Baltar did commit treason, but not on New Caprica. The evidence just isn’t there. Later we find out that Adama was sufficiently swayed by Lee’s speech to find Baltar not guilty, and though that looks like that’ll put a strain on his and Roslin’s relationship—she looks like she’s about to spit fire–I also have my fingers crossed that it’ll cut down on Adama Drama for season four. Please, Lords of Kobol, let it be over.

And then. And then. As if enough hasn’t already happened this episode. The fleet jumps to the Ionian Nebula, and Roslin gets hit by a spell of dizziness right before the power goes out. Baltar’s wandering around the halls and is pulled aside by the religious lady from Part 1, who says she’s taking him to his new life. Caprica, sleeping in her cell, dreams about seeing the Final Five and wakes up crying.

Annnnd speaking of the Final Five. Four of them are the ones who’ve been hearing the Weird Space Music: Anders, Tory, Tigh, and Tyrol. I saw it coming last episode—five secret Cylons, four people going nuts—but still, when Tyrol says “we’re Cylons,” it shook me.

Tigh’s a Cylon.

Tigh the One-Eyed Cylon.

Tighlon.

I can’t.

The “All Along the Watchtower” scene is amazing—just after this episode finished I uploaded the song to my iPhone, and I may have already listened to it a few (dozen) times. How is a Bob Dylan song the Cylon sleeper agent trigger when Bob Dylan, I can only assume, has never been to Caprica? We just don’t know. But whatever. The four of them are drawn into a room together where they all admit that, yes, they’re Cylons. Tyrol’s the only one who doesn’t seen in some way upset by it. Tigh and Anders are both horrified that all the fighting they’ve done, all the friends and loved ones they’ve lost, have apparently been for nothing. Tigh killed Ellen for working with a Cylon, and then it turns out he is a Cylon. Tory’s just freaked out and doesn’t know what to do.

The power comes back on, but at the same time a massive Cylon fleet shows up. The good guys can’t run away, since doing a hard reset on the FTL drives will take at least twenty minutes. Tigh says that, sure, they may be Cylons, but they’re still going to do their frakking jobs, same as normal. They might all be about to die, but he wants to die as an officer in the colonial fleet.

You go, Tigh! You go!

So Tigh and Tory go to the CIC to be with Adama and Roslin, and Tyrol and Anders head to the flight deck. Lee, hearing that the Cylons have attacked, decides to fight even though he’s technically not in the military anymore. Flying through the nebula, he sees a strange ship pull up next to him…

… and it’s piloted by Starbuck. She tells Lee that everything’s going to be OK. She’s been to Earth, and she’s going to take the fleet there. As “All Along the Watchtower” reaches its crescendo we zoom out and see that the fleet is in the Milky Way, a stone’s throw (in space terms) away from Earth.

And: Scene.

Oh my God. How did people cope back in the day when they had to wait months for season four to premiere? Starbuck’s back and knows the way to Earth (that didn’t get to me all that much, to be honest, since I was still shellshocked because Tigh’s a Cylon), and that’s wonderful, but the Cylon fleet is still about to kill them. And when D’anna saw the Final Five she told one of them, presumably the leader, something like “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you.” But that wouldn’t be Tigh, Anders, Tory, or Tyrol, right? Because D’anna would have no reason to know any of them. So who’s the Cylon big boss? Who took Starbuck to Earth? What’re Tigh and Anders (and the other two, I guess) going to do now that they know they’re Cylons? For what purpose did the Cylons choose to activate them? Is it to get Hera? Will they be able to keep their newfound identity away from Athena and Caprica? What’s going on?

Check back next week for my newbie recap of the Razor webseries and movie, after which I’ll start season four. I really hope it doesn’t pull a Heroes and fail to live up to its potential, because this is some darn good build-up BSG‘s got going.

In an effort to avoid spoilers, comments on this post have been locked. However, Jill and Susana will be reading comments over at our Facebook page, so if there’s anything you’d like to say in response to this post head on over that way. Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here, and next week’s recap is here. Have a (non-spoilery, for the love of God) comment? Hit me up on Twitter.
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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

Oh, Admiral Cain. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed you.

Razor: Movie

This movie introduces us to (and kills off) a new character: Lt. Kendra Shaw (Stephanie Jacobsen), who was Admiral Cain’s assistant and managed to royally piss off both of the Pegasus’ subsequent Captains with her insubordinate behavior. But Lee—who during Razor has just been promoted to Captain—decides to make her his XO as a show of respect for Admiral Cain and the Pegasus’ crew.

But first let’s flash even further back to right before the Cylon attack on Caprica. Shaw’s famous politician mother died of cancer, but before she passed she managed to get her daughter a sweet gig as Cain’s assistant. Shaw starts off on the wrong foot by getting lost on the way to the CIC, and within a minute of meeting her Cain calls her out for not knowing her way around a Battlestar and for being a nepotism hire who views her job as a stepping-stone to better things. It’s sad that your mom died, she says, but do not try and use that to elicit my sympathies.

Admiral Cain!

She’s not the only familiar face we see. There’s also Six, aka Gina, who’s been helping upgrade the Pegasus’ computer network. Oooooh, secret Cylon.

As Shaw is going back to her quarters the Cylons attack the shipyards where the Pegasus is being repaired. We know, but the characters don’t, that the Cylons are attacking the colonies as well. Shaw gets knocked to the ground, and it takes a slap from Cain to get her back into soldier mode. Back on the CIC everyone’s been caught completely off-guard, and Cain orders the ship to jump away lest they get nuked. With the network down there’s no way to calculate their destination—Shaw protests that they could end up in the middle of a star—but a blind jump is the only option they have left.

Back in the present day (well, the Razor version of the present day) Lee and Adama watch Shaw, now the XO, teach some newbies about assembling guns. She’s a hard taskmaster; Adama says he didn’t think it possible to find an XO meaner than Tigh, but Lee managed it. Shaw and Starbuck, who’s been appointed as the Pegasus’ CAG, aren’t getting along. Show of hands as to who’s actually surprised here?

Adama has a mission for Adama Jr.: A search and rescue op to retrieve five people, two Raptor pilots and three civilian scientists, who went out to examine the remnants of a supernova and haven’t come back. Should Lee run into Cylons engaging with them isn’t part of the mission, but it’s his call as to whether he wants to anyway.

Flashback: It’s right after the Cylon attack on Caprica, and the Pegasus has suffered heavy losses to the tune of almost a quarter of the crew. Shaw’s been working for two days straight to restore systems and figure out how the Cylons brought down their defense systems, and Cain orders her to go get some sleep. For all that Cain’s presented as a villain (kind of—I don’t believe she really is), she’s a wonderful Captain, reassuring her crewmembers, tirelessly working to protect her ship, even mourning over the bodies of her dead subordinates. She takes the time to commend Shaw for her hard work and give her some Captain-ly advice, and even if the compliment’s backhanded (“You’re not as useless as I thought.”) and the advice is just plain bad (“Always hold onto your anger.”), well, that’s just who Cain is.

By this point the Raptors that Cain sent to find out what happened on the Colonies have returned, and Cain has to break the news to her crew that the Cylons kiiiind of committed genocide against humanity and everyone they know is dead. It may seem like they have no options, Cain says, but they’re soldiers, so they’re going to do what soldiers do: War. It’ll be their lifelong duty to avenge humanity. As long as the Pegasus survives, the war the Cylons started won’t be over.

Oof. Feels. For all that Cain’s militaristic bent came off as awful during season two, she started off after the Cylon attack having literally nothing else she could do. For all she knows the couple thousand people on the Pegasus are literally the only people left. She doesn’t have civilians to protect. She doesn’t even think there are any civilians.

Cain assembles a meeting where she explains to Shaw, Fisk, Gina, and the Pegasus’ XO (I didn’t catch his name, but I’ll just call him DMW for Dead Man Walking) that, while she told the crew what they needed to hear with her graaarrrrgh, war! speech, in actuality she’s not going to risk lives or resources on a quest for revenge. The plan is a guerrilla war campaign: Hitting specific Cylon targets and then darting away into the blackness of space. Shaw and Gina (wuh-oh) worked together to find their first target: A Cylon comms relay.

Also: Admiral Cain and Gina-the-secret-Cylon are a wee bit lovey-dovey during the meeting, and Gina later confirms to Shaw that they’re together. As in together-together. Romantically. Oh my God. I love it, but this will not end well. Shaw, encouraged by the way Cain trusts Gina so much, gives her a super-secret authorization code so they can finish fixing the ship’s network in half the time.

It’s the present-day, and the rescue mission is underway. Except when Starbuck and fellow Viper pilot Showboat get to the place where the Raptors disappeared a slew of weird-looking Raiders show up. Against the advice of his XO Lee orders that the Pegasus jump back to the fleet. Shaw takes the initiative anyway and orders that the Pegasus’ guns fire on the Cylons. Problem is Starbuck’s right in the line of fire.

It all works out OK: Starbuck and Showboat make it back to the ship, and one of the Raiders Starbuck shot down ends up coming with them. Starbuck complains to Lee about Shaw being a loose cannon—oh, like you’re one to talk—and Lee tells her that Shaw probably saved her life. So Starbuck goes to yell at Shaw instead and is told not to question her orders. You won’t like me when you question my orders.

Back in flashback-land we see the dire consequences of insubordination back when Cain was in charge. The attack on the comms station is underway, and the Cylons knew the Pegasus was coming, because there are a ton more Raiders there than there should be. All the same Cain orders the attack to go ahead, even though it’ll likely result in heavy losses. DMW reminds her that engaging in a hopeless fight for the sake of revenge is exactly what she said they wouldn’t be doing and then refuses to follow her orders. So she shoots him in the head.

We heard about this story secondhand before, but it’s still shocking to see it. The transition from reasonable Captain to a revenge-hungry killer seems a bit quick. She was talking about how she didn’t want to waste people’s lives like five scenes ago. Put Admiral Cain under pressure and she’s liable to boil.

Cylons board the ship, and Shaw runs off to do… something. Whatever. The important thing is that she sees another Six walking with the Centurions and without hesitation shoots her dead and makes sure there’s a security camera pointing at the corpse. And for that I compose her a Haiku:

Kendra frakking Shaw
Badass, really knows her stuff
Shame she’s going to die

Shaw hightails it back to the CIC where Gina’s helping Cain do computer stuff. Shaw knows that Cain won’t believe her when she says Gina’s a Cylon—they didn’t even know that Cylons can look like humans before—so she asks Hoshi to pull up the security feed of the other!Six’s corpse. The jig well and firmly up, Cain orders the guards to take Gina away, but she fights back and gets a gun trained on her (now former) lover. But it’s Shaw to the rescue as she clocks Gina with the butt of her gun.

Side note: Why did the Cylons send a Six with the boarding party? Send a D’anna! Or a Boomer! Or any model that’s not already on the ship. I guess they assumed that they’d defeat the Pegasus no problem, so if Gina was discovered it didn’t matter. But the Pegasus does end up getting away safely, and because the Centurions who boarded the ship don’t get mentioned again I assume they get killed. I’m tempted to say that that the Cylons, for all they’re supposed to be geniuses, are so filled with hubris that being defeated just didn’t occur to them. I still think that’s part of it, as it definitely  meshes with their characterization. But why even send Centurions to board the ship in the first place before the battle’s even over? Unless they wanted Gina to get found out, but why would they? She’s still on the inside! She can get more valuable information! Hell, if you want to expose her have her pull a Boomer and assassinate Cain.

It heartens me that this show it’s perfect, though.

Back in the present-day Adama, Lee, Tigh, and Roslin are puzzling over the wrecked Raider now chilling on the Pegasus hangar bay. It’s old. Really old. Like from-the-first-Cylon-War old. Baltar and Head Six have a completely pointless cameo, and Athena gets things back on track by recounting the Cylon legend of the Guardians, a group of obsolete Centurious who avoided being scrapped and set off to protect the first hybrid. Nowadays hybrids control the baseships, Athena explains, but the first one was just a failed attempt to make a skinjob. Some people think it’s still alive and looking for its own way to evolve.

The next part of Razor is pretty much just a shortened version of the Razor webseries, which is about Adama during the first Cylon War. So let’s take a break for that.

Razor: Webseries

Young Adama is Batman. Pass it on.

Seriously. Combine young Adama actor Nico Cortez‘s looks with the gravelly Edward James Olmos voice he’s got going on, and he’s Batman.

Young Adama, call sign Husker, gets his sexy on with a Raptor pilot named Jaycie before going out on his first mission, which involves some sort of superweapon the Cylons are developing out in the arctic. He’s nervous, but Jaycie reassures him and tells him that all his training will kick in.

So when Jaycie gets half her face blown off in a Cylon ambush, well, it’s a bit unsettling for Adama. But he and his wingman Banazi go out to kick some toaster ass all the same. A Battlestar gets blown up and Adama takes off after a few rogue Raiders.

Side note: The Vipers are all bright and shiny, unlike in the show, when they’re beaten-up and grimy. Help. I’m having feels over ship paint jobs.

Adama’s Viper is hit by a Raider, so he ejects and lands in the Cylons’ super-secret lab… after a mid-air fight with a falling Centurion, that is. Aw yiss. When he lands he beats the Centurion to death with a pole and goes off exploring.

Where are the Cylons? WHERE ARE THEY?!

Ahem.

Adama finds a lab filled with surgical equipment and, ew, dismembered limbs, plus an early version of the Cylon resurrection tank. Adama dips his hands in the resurrection goo and looks around to see screaming humans being operated on by Cylons. A hand reaches out from the tank and grabs him—and all at once the Cylons and humans in the gruesome scene before him disappear. It was all a hallucination.

Adama finds a room of humans kidnapped by the Cylons from a trading vessel. Through a crack in the door one of them says the Cylons are picking them off one by one, experimenting on them. The ship starts to take off, and the prisoner tells Adama, who’s unable to get the door open, that he has to leave them behind so someone can tell people what happened to them.

Adama gets safely outside and radios back to the Galactica… only to be told that the war’s over. Just like that. A sudden armistice has been signed.

We flash to two days before the Cylon attack on Caprica, when the Galactica is preparing to be decommissioned. Doral—at this point just a squirrelly PR agent as far as anyone knows—tells Adama that his son will be leading the ceremony. It’s a shame about the Galactica, he says, but it’s about time—her war is long over. Adama, gazing at an old Centurion in a display case, says he guesses so.

I prefer this webseries to the last one, if only because Razor adds some intriguing information to BSG‘s overall mythology. Like how the Cylons have been able to induce hallucinations in humans for a long damn time, since even before they were skinjobs. I really hope they explain what the deal is with all these hallucinations people keep having (Leoben, Head Six, Head Baltar), because I’m on tenterhooks here.

And speaking of the skinjobs: Even when the Cylons signed an armistice, they never wanted peace! They just wanted to invent skinjobs, and when Adama happened upon their experiments they noped right out of there and continued to work in private using the tools (read: people) they’d already gathered. Knowing the Cylons never intended on playing nice is a pretty irrelevant detail in the scheme of things—they sure don’t intend to play nice now—but I really love that it was included.

And now, back to the movie:

So, basically, the first hybrid was the thing the Centurions got away with at the end of the webseries, and now they’ve captured some more humans to experiment on. Seeing as Adama’s personally invested and all he’ll set up camp on the Pegasus while Lee, who’s still in charge, tries the rescue mission again. Only this time they have to send a team into an actual Cylon Basestar to rescue the captured humans while the Pegasus is off to the side drawing enemy fire. It’s a plan that Shaw came up with, but there’s some question as to whether she’s trustworthy ’cause of a little thing that happened on a ship called the Scylla. Shaw says she’ll resign if Lee asks her to, but he doesn’t, because quitting would be the easy way out.

Flashback: It’s the aftermath of the attack on the comms station and the Pegasus has taken heavy losses. Cain clearly regrets wasting so much life on a tactically insignificant victory, but Shaw argues that it’s not insignificant because it put the Cylons on notice. Anyway, she says, it’s my fault we lost so many people, since I gave Gina my access codes.

Far from blowing up at her, Cain tells Shaw that she trusted the Cylon, too. Lieutenant Thorne comes in all ready to interrogate their prisoner, and Cain tells him to be as “creative”—read: sadistic—as he needs to be.

It’s then that a civilian fleet shows up. Far from being happy that they’re not all that’s left of humanity, Cain orders Fisk, Shaw, and a group of marines to board the ships and take whatever people and supplies they need, leaving everyone else behind to be picked off by the Cylons. Fisk clearly isn’t OK with the plan, but after what happened to his predecessor he’s not willing to say anything, and neither is anyone else on the CIC. The civilians refuse to cooperate, and when Fisk calls Cain to ask what to do she says to shoot the families of the people who won’t go with them.

Like Cain shooting her XO, what happens on the Scylla is something we heard about in season two: Fisk and the marines do end up shooting everyone who’s not of military value. Actually seeing how things go down, though, we get a better idea of what drove Cain to give the order. She just found out that there was a Cylon agent on the Pegasus. Who’s to say there aren’t more of them on the civilian ships? And Gina wasn’t some random co-worker: Gain trusted her, maybe even loved her. They’d been romantically involved for months. Cain clearly has personal feelings of anger and betrayal mixed in with the part of her brain that makes tactical decisions. That isn’t to say she made the right call with the Scylla, but it’s much more complicated than “this person is evil and doesn’t value human life.”

Shaw’s been affected by what went down on the Scylla ever since. Earlier in the episode we saw her inject herself with some drug, and now she goes to do it again. But Starbuck, who’s snuck into the kitchen for a few sips of forbidden alcohol, catches her at it. They agree to keep each other’s secrets, which works out for Shaw, since her secret’s way worse than the CAG stealing some booze. What Shaw also gets out the deal is the begrudging… not respect of, but interest of Starbuck, who now knows that Shaw has some issues of her own and isn’t some perfect soldier.

We flash back to Cain promoting Shaw to the rank of Captain in the aftermath of the Scylla. Shaw doesn’t think she deserves it, but Cain gives her a pep-talk… well, the Cain version of one, saying that sometimes you have to leave people behind so you can continue to fight.

And then we get a glimpse of Cain’s backstory: During the first Cylon war she, her father, and her little sister were in a city being attacked by Cylons. Papa Cain got injured and told his older daughter, the Cain we know, to leave him behind and protect her younger sister. But then the younger sister got injured, too, and instead of staying behind to help her Cain ran away to save herself. A Centurion found her hiding place, and she was all ready to take that toaster down with a razor she found on the ground… but then the war ended and all the Centurions left, taking Cain’s little sister with them. That’s brutal, man.

Cain explains to Shaw that sometimes people have to do things they don’t think they’re capable of. They have to make themselves into a razor with no fear or regrets. In the present day Shaw gives that same advice to Starbuck, who shoots it down with a Nah. My mom was all about anger too, but she held onto it for so long that she drove everyone away and died alone. Fear and anger are two sides of the same coin. You have to let go of both.

I love the interaction between Shaw and Starbuck, because they’re so similar. They’re headstrong and no-BS, even when it gets them in trouble with their higher-ups. Heck, Cain was even shaping Starbuck to be a new protégé, and the ‘buck really seemed to admire Cain in that small amount of time that they knew each other. Shaw’s a bit like what Starbuck could have been had things gone differently.

Starbuck, Shaw, and some other Pegasus peeps pile into a Raptor with a nuclear weapon go embark on their rescue mission. Shaw actually utters the words “Maybe this’ll be easier than we thought.” She actually says that. Way to jinx things for yourself, lady.

And sure enough, after the rescue team gets onto the Cylon Basestar everything goes to hell. They find two humans who’re being experimented on, but then Centurions show up and one of the rescue team is killed and two more, including Shaw, get wounded. Plus the nuclear bomb, which they were going to detonate remotely on the Basestar once they got out, is FUBAR.

To make matters worse, communications have been jammed. Lee assumes the entire rescue team is dead and is all ready to nuke the Basestar with one of his own missiles. The rescue mission is over, he says, but we still have to destroy the ship, because it might be heading to Earth. Gods only know what’ll happen to any prisoners the Centurions have managed to capture..

I do know, Adama responds. I was there.

Lee orders a nuclear strike, but Adama belays the order and says that if he’s wrong about the rescue team being alive, if they’ve missed their chance to destroy this Cylon Basestar, then he’ll live with that himself, thank you very much. It’s right then that the communications come back and Starbuck calls the Pegasus to ask, hey, you’re coming to rescue us, right? I love the momentary shame on Lee’s face when she calls. “No one tell my best friend I almost blew her up, OK? Pinky swear?”

The problem with the rescue team’s broken nuke is solved by Shaw saying she’ll stay behind and detonate it manually. Well, it’s less her saying she will than Lee giving Starbuck the order to sacrifice herself only for Shaw to hold a gun on her and say that she’ll be the one to do it. After the rest of the team is safely away Shaw goes to see the first hybrid, which we’ve seen a few times spouting cryptic nonsense that’s still a bit less nonsensical than what comes from the other hybrid we’ve seen.

The hybrid tells Shaw that he’s been waiting for her a long time and asks if she wants to be forgiven. In a flashback we see exactly what she wants to be forgiven for: On the Scylla she fired the first shot, shooting an unarmed civilian straight through the forehead and setting off the massacre. Having lured Shaw in with the promise of redemption, the hybrid grabs her wrist and tells her that Starbuck is a harbinger of death and will lead the human race to its end.

Wait, what?

And then—oh, I love this moment so much—Shaw gets on the radio and tries to warn Lee about what the hybrid said. She’s seconds from death. She’s wounded and scared and emotionally frakked up. She’s young and she’s been through so much, and still in her final moments she gets a piece of intel and thinks, hey, maybe my commanding officer should know about this. She doesn’t give up or think she can just relax even though she has every excuse to do either of those things. She’s a soldier ’til the end.

Only the communications choose that exact moment to conveniently cut out and Shaw can’t deliver her message. With nothing left to do, she blows up the hybrid, the ship, and herself.

Back on the Pegasus Lee is summoned by Adama, who tells his son that Starbuck recommended Shaw for a posthumous commendation. Lee’s a bit iffy because of what Shaw’s done in the past, but for Adama that’s not relevant. Cain—and Shaw—did some awful things, but from a tactical point of view there was nothing wrong with any of them. Cain didn’t have her own Roslin to balance out her decision-making and fight on behalf of the civilians. She didn’t have a Tigh to keep her honest, or a kid to make her want to be a better person. In the absence of a higher power—which Adama doesn’t believe in—history will decide if Cain and her followers were monsters.

Afterwards Lee goes to talk to Starbuck, who’s appropriated Shaw’s old razor, and asks her why she thinks Shaw stayed behind. Starbuck doesn’t know but says that maybe Shaw thought she had a lot to answer for. She then says that she’s asked to be reassigned to the Galactica, because the commanding officer of the Pegasus keeps trying to get her killed. I was expecting this to turn into some big dramatic thing, and it didn’t—they just laugh and jokingly insult each other. Lee seems to completely understand Starbuck wanting to serve under a different Captain. I miss this friendship. I miss it so much. I hope we get it back in season four. I’m sorry I ever shipped these two.

The episode ends with Starbuck sarcastically reminding Lee that she has a destiny and he’ll be stuck with her to the end.

Which, if Starbuck brings about the end, he very well may be.

I’m scared.

Next week: The season four premiere.

In an effort to avoid spoilers, comments on this post have been locked. However, Jill and Susana will be reading comments over at our Facebook page, so if there’s anything you’d like to say in response to this post head on over that way. Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here, and next week’s recap is here. Have a (non-spoilery, for the love of God) comment? Hit me up on Twitter.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

Ahhhh, the sweet smell of a new season. The horrible, rancid smell of the knowledge that there’s only one full season, plus a webseries and a few TV movies, left before there’s no more BSG to watch.

He That Believeth in Me

BSG, I notice you put Simon the Cylon in the opening credits. Does that mean he’s actually going to get to do something? I’m guessing no.

Season four starts mere seconds after season three left off: Starbuck’s just rolled up alongside Lee and told him she knows the way to Earth. But they’re all going to be blown up by Cylons, so it could very well be a moot point. Everyone listening in on their conversation in the CIC is just as shocked as Lee is; Adama orders that her ship’s transponder codes be double-checked, and Roslin is convinced that it’s some sort of Cylon trick, even after Lee and Starbuck swoop into battle and start lighting up some toasters.

Tigh looks absolutely panicked—he just found out he was a Cylon a few minutes ago, and yeah, saying you’ll fight on the side of the humans is all well and good, but when the bad guys you’re actually one of are pulling some kind of sneaky trick I can see how it would be freak out-inducing. Even worse, Tigh has a waking nightmare where he shoots Adama right through the eye socket. (His right eye, the same one Tigh lost to the Cylons. Gotta love the little details.) He lets loose a Darth Vader-esque NOOOOOOO before snapping back into the real world where Adama’s telling him to pull himself together and get every single person who even vaguely knows how to fly a ship out there to fight the Cylons.

Among that group is Anders, who’s just finished Viper training but all the same isn’t quite ready to go out into a huge battle. He corners Tyrol and freaks out at him a bit, asking what he’ll do if if a switch turns in his head and he starts shooting down Vipers mid-battle. Get it together, Tyrol says. Be the man you wan to to die as. Go out and fight, because there’s really nothing else you can do. Athena hears the tail end of the conversation and assumes that Anders is just nervous, which reassures him that if one Cylon doesn’t notice he’s one of them then maybe the others won’t either.

Tyrol seems to be keeping it together pretty well, but Anders is losing it. Still, I predict that Tyrol will be the first to snap. He has a history of seeming to be completely OK… right up until the moment when he isn’t.

Things aren’t going well in the battle: Basestars are launching missiles at the Galactica and the fleet, and none of the good guys even have a clue as to how the Cylons knew where to find them. Anders finds himself unable to fire on a Raider that he has firmly in his sights. We find out later that he accidentally left the safeties on, but it seems to him—and to me—that something (programming?) stopped him from firing on a fellow Cylon. The Raider is all ready to shoot him down, but instead it scans him with its eye-radar thingy. Beep beep. One skinjob, $9.95.

I’m loving Anders more and more after the Cylon reveal. Mid-battle is like the worst place to have an existential crisis, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be doing the exact same thing.

Seeing Anders causes the entire Cylon fleet to just go away. It’s ostensibly good news, since yay, everyone won’t die, but it implies that none of the other Cylons knew that four of the final five were activated. And that’s just creepy.

Way to resolve that cliffhanger, BSG.

Meanwhile Baltar’s been bundled off to live with the religious lady Jeanne and her buds. Turns out they’re members of some sort of hippie cult that worships Baltar as their lord and savior. They have a shrine for him. It’s kind of hilarious. Also hilarious (and poignant): Even before he’s introduced to the cult as a whole, when he just knows Jeanne is a lady with a sick kid who thinks he’s magic, Baltar’s drapes the shawl she gave him as a disguise around his shoulders like he’s some sort of religious icon from a classical painting. Other characters—Gaeta, for one—have said how remarkably good Baltar is at self-preservation. That kicks into high gear in all his interactions with the cult. Baltar finds himself in a situation where people thinks he’s their savior, and he automatically adapts to fit that role, even if he thinks said people are completely bonkers.

Later on another cult member, Paulla, tells him that he can’t leave, not because he’s forced to stay there physically, but because nowhere else on the fleet will take him. It’s a pretty big hit to his ego, and Head Six shows up to reassure him that his story’s not over yet, the big baby. Without him being aware of it she physically molds him into a position so it looks like he’s praying. That catches the attention of another cultist, Tracey, who coos that he prays like the Gods are right there beside him and proceeds to undress him.

Head Six prompts Baltar to tell her that the reason she feels so hollow when she prays is that her Gods are false; Baltar takes it one step further and tells her that they’re a lie promoted by The Man to keep the little guy from learning the truth. What Paulla asks him what that truth is he’s so thoroughly distracted by his, ahem, downstairs brain that an exasperated Head Six has to remind him that, hello, there’s only one God. How many times have we been over this?!

A hilariously unsmooth Baltar proceeds to get sexed up right under a shrine to his own glorious self. Cult subplot: I think I love you.

Starbuck’s landed on the hangar deck and totally doesn’t get why everyone’s looking at her like she’s a ghost. Turns out that while to everyone else she’s been dead for two months she only thinks she’s been away for six hours. She has an emotional reunion with Lee and a somewhat less emotional reunion with Anders before Adama orders that she be escorted to sick bay under armed guard.

After being examined by Doc Cottle she has a meeting with Adama and Roslin, who’s convinced that she’s still a Cylon even if Baltar’s Cylon-detector test (oh, that old thing) says she isn’t. Roslin explains that her Viper took some hits and she woke up above a star system that matched the description of Earth found in the scrolls of Pythia. Furthermore, the pictures she took of the surrounding constellations match those from the map in the Tomb of Athena. After taking the pictures she turned the ship around, saw a gas giant with rings (ohai Saturn!), a comet, and a flashing triple star before blacking out again. She doesn’t know how she got back or why she perceived it as only six hours, but she didn’t imagine what happened to her.

The Viper Starbuck flew back in looks like the same one she was in before—same model, same ID number—but it’s brand new. There’s no data on the nav computer, and the paint’s not even scratched. The Cylons must’ve replaced it at some point, but it’s a pretty obvious switch; they must’ve known the humans would pick up on it. It’s probably part of their plan, whatever that plan is.

Roslin demands that Starbuck be taken the brig, which Lee objects to. Sure, there’s a lot of weird stuff going on, but there’s no actual evidence that she’s a Cylon. The Cylon test came back negative, after all. Tigh points out that the test isn’t exactly reliable since it said Boomer was human when she isn’t. Oh, dramatic irony! Roslin tells Adama that the Cylons could be counting on him to be sympathetic to Starbuck. She could be waiting to lead the fleet into an ambush or assassinate someone. Or, worse, use psychological manipulation to take over the Galactica’s PA system. Lee brings up the completely valid point that they went to the Eye of Nebula to find the next clue as to the location of Earth, and maybe Starbuck’s that clue. But it’s not enough to convince Roslin, who’s seemed to have strayed a bit from her “Religion! Signs! Destiny!” viewpoint of earlier seasons. Hey, the post-apocalypse will harden a woman.

Back in the hippie cult abode Jeanne springs her dying child Derrick on Baltar while Baltar’s sleeping nude and post-coital alongside Tracey. I get that you want your son to die with you and not in sickbay, Baltar’s face says, but let a dude put some pants on before you put a little kid right next to him, OK? Baltar tells Jeanne that she prayed for her son, but it’s more like he’s reassuring himself than he’s reassuring her. You know I did everything I could do, right? You know I tried? I’m not to blame here. It relates to him being an expert at self-preservation; he can make him look the part fine, but he seems insecure that he’s never actually what he promotes himself as being.

Meanwhile the four newbie Cylons sit in a room chatting about whether they’ve been programmed to help the Cylons. Tigh outright rejects the concept–Boomer may have been programmed to shoot Adama, he says, but she didn’t know what she is, and we do. He’s convinced that he can override his programming through stubbornness and sheer strength of will.

Either he can’t and he ends up doing something really bad, or he can and the sheer power of his bro-love for Adama makes it so he’s able to keep himself from hurting him when the Cylons inevitably order him to. Either way, this is going to hurt like a motherfrakker, and I’m scared.

Roslin goes to Caprica and asks her for the 411 on the Final Five. But there’s not much Caprica can say other than she senses that they’re close, since the non-FF skinjobs have been programmed not to think about their mysterious brethren. Well your programming doesn’t work, Roslin points out, because you’re thinking about them now. Even trying not to think about them is still thinking about them. How do you rationalize that?

Yeah, President Roslin! Yeah logic!

Back on the CIC Starbuck has enlisted Gaeta’s help to find the star system that matches the pictures of Earth she took. He’s being less than cooperative, though, because he—like everyone who doesn’t think she’s a Cylon—just thinks she’s plain crazy. Gaeta, I love you, but stop being a douche. Helo tells Starbuck that the only way to make people believe her is to find the system, but she responds that it’s not that easy. She didn’t know that she was at Earth because of star charts and calculations. She knew it because of the feeling she got when she was there. And the further the fleet jumps away from the Eye of Jupiter the more than feeling fades, the less likely it becomes that she’ll ever be able to find her way back.

Later she asks Adama to please trust her, even though there’s so much about her return that doesn’t add up and she’s not really giving him much to go on, Earth-wise. But Adama refuses.

I’m normally on Team Logic, and there’s no real logical reason to follow Starbuck’s hunch, but even so, I’m on her side here and kind of judge Adama for not being. The fleet’s just randomly jumping around. Roslin had a “hunch” that the Eye of Jupiter would lead humanity to Earth; there was no real proof there, either. Why not follow Starbuck’s course? And as for her being a Cylon… well, I think that’s a chance that they have to take. Even if she’s a Cylon, she’s still Starbuck. Cylons can still be true to their human selves. Exhibit A: Boomer. And Adama’s got to realize, as a tactician, that it’s like 99% sure humanity will eventually be killed by the Cylons. Can they really afford not to take a risk and follow Starbuck’s lead? It’s not like they have any others.

Sometimes, in the words of George Michael, you gotta have faith.

Adama then has a conversation with Lee where—hold onto your butts, ’cause this is big—they managed to disagree about two separate things without the conversation devolving into three-year-olds having a slap fight. Adama wants Lee to come back to the military, but Lee says thanks but no thanks, there’s a job opening in the government where he can do some real good. And Adama’s convinced that Starbuck’s not trustworthy, but Lee says she is. If it was my brother Zak in Starbuck’s place, he asks, would it matter if he’d always been a Cylon? Would it change how we feel about him?

Also: It comes out in this conversation that Roslin’s sleeping in Adama’s quarters until the Colonial One gets fixed.

Back in the hippie commune Baltar prays for the little boy’s life: The child hasn’t sinned against you, so you can’t want to punish him. I’m the one who’s sinned, so if you want someone to suffer, take me. It appears that his prayer didn’t work, since a few days down the line Derrick’s doing worse. Paulla takes him to the bathroom to shave off his Jesus beard (RIP), and a few minutes later he’s attacked by a guy whose son was shot by the human soldiers on New Caprica. I’m gonna include this exchange, because I think it says a lot about Baltar’s character:

Dude: We met at the groundbreaking ceremony on New Caprica. Introduced you to my son Kevin. He told you he wanted to be President when he grew up. You told him that he could be if he stuck to his schoolwork.
Baltar: He’s a redhead little boy, isn’t he? About eight or nine years old…
Dude: Seven years old.
Baltar: How is, um…
Dude: Kevin
Baltar: Kevin.
Dude: He’s dead.

Baltar. Do not even act like you didn’t remember that boy’s name, you giant poser. You probably remembered it before the father even told you. Baltar can be remarkably sincere when there aren’t people watching—when he started praying, for example, everyone was asleep, and you could tell he really felt for that boy. But as soon as he has an audience up goes the wall of indifference.

The dude’s goon pins Paulla down and the dude himself—he has a name, but whatever—handles Baltar, holding a razor to his neck and demanding that he scream and beg. But he doesn’t. Head Six asks him whether he meant what he said about asking God to take his own life, and Baltar just tells the dude to go on ahead kill him. Paulla takes a level in badass and manages to immobilize both the dude and his muscly assistant. I know God wouldn’t desert you, she tells Baltar. I felt God giving me the strength to smite those guys. Damn, girl. Smite on.

They get back to cult central and discover that Derrick’s magically gotten better. Baltar looks completely shocked, like Damn, am I actually magic? Head Six looks at him like she knows something he doesn’t. When does she not?

Starbuck’s at the memorial wall looking at her picture; she asks Anders when he comes up why no one ever took it down. Unspoken is that no one took it down because no one’s quite sure that she did come back, at least not the same her. Starbuck confides in Anders that maybe she is a Cylon, or something the Cylons grew in a lab from parts they took off her when she was in one of the Farms on Caprica. But if you were a Cylon, Anders says, then you were one from the beginning. It wouldn’t change who you really are. I’d still love you no matter what.

Well that makes you a better person than I am, Starbuck retorts, ’cause if I found out you were a Cylon I’d put a bullet between your eyes.

The fleet makes another jump, and Starbuck tells Anders that they’re going in the wrong direction and if they make one more jump she won’t be able to find her way back to Earth. Determined to get to Roslin, Starbuck beats up the guards assigned to follow her, taking out Anders in the process, and makes her way to Adama’s quarters. All hopes that maybe she just wants to have a reasonable chat evaporates when she uses a grenade to take out the marines outside the door and trains a gun on Roslin.

I’m calling it: There is no way on God’s green Earth that Starbuck’s a Cylon. One, they wouldn’t reveal the last Cylon in the season premiere. Two, the Cylons are being awfully obvious about making it look like she’s a Cylon. The new ship, the time difference. Granted, back when Tyrol first thought he was a Cylon I thought he wasn’t because there was no way the Cylons would be that obvious. My intuition’s been wrong before. And the grand destiny Leoben talks about could have something to do with Starbuck being the Cylon big daddy. Actually, that would make a lot of sense, because what else could her destiny be referring to?

Holy hell, is Starbuck the last Cylon?

No, she’s not. That’s way too cut-and-dried, and there’s a whole season left.

But maybe she is?

No, she’s not.

But maybe?

No.

What’s going onnnnnnn?

Six of One

Starbuck’s not ready to kill Roslin quite yet: Instead she tries to convince the President to trust her, which doesn’t seem all that likely when Starbuck charges in with a gun, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. It was your vision that sent us down to Kobol to find the Temple of Athena, says says. It was dangerous, and a lot of people died, but I trusted you based on a vision. I’ve actually seen Earth. Why can’t you trust me?

The reason, of course, is that Roslin thinks Starbuck’s a Cylon. Starbuck, knowing that, gives Roslin her gun and tells her to go ahead and shoot. She does, but at a distance of only a few feet she misses, shooting a picture of herself and Adama instead. (I’m going to just say Awww, that’s cute, Adama has a picture of him and Roslin on his wall instead of focusing on the potential symbolism/foreshadowing of Roslin shooting it. It’s just a coincidence, brain. Juuuuust a coincidence.)

Tigh and Helo bust in along with a group of marines, who wrestle a screaming Starbuck to the ground. Even Helo, who’s always been on her side, looks at her like she’s crazy. As she’s being dragged from the room to the brig she yells that Roslin’s going to have to kill her because she won’t stop trying to get them to Earth.

There’s a bit of drama brewing among the Cylons: Brother Cavil, upset that the Raiders refused to shoot Anders, wants to basically lobotomize them, removing their higher brain functions and turning them into nothing more than machines. A Six and the Eights object on the grounds that A) it’s wrong, as the Raiders are sentient and B) the Raiders must’ve refused to fight because they sensed that the Final Five were on the Galactica. Cavil essentially puts his hands to his ears and goes LALALALALA! We’re specifically forbidden from discussing the Final Five, he says. There’s a reason we were programmed that way, and to try and exceed that programming is dangerous.

The Cylon models vote on whether to lobotomize the Raiders, but with three (the Cavils, Simons, and Dorals) voting for and three (the Sixes, Eights, and Leobens) against they find themselves deadlocked. But then Boomer—the Eight we know—switches sides and joins Cavil. It’s an unprecedented occurrence, but there’s no rule against it, so the Sixes, Leobens, and the rest of the Eights have to either surrender…

… or pull a trick of their own. Unsurprisingly, they opt for door number two. We learned earlier in the show that the Centurions have a fancy technical whatjahoozit that keeps them from having any higher brain functions. Six removes that and tells the Centurions, Hey, you know your buddies the Raiders? Guess what Cavil wants to do to them? The Centurions, newly sentient, gun down Cavil, Simon, and Doral, delaying the lobotomies and initiating open conflict among the Cylons.

You go, Six. That was amazing.

Back to the Galactica. Tyrol, Tigh, Anders, and Tory have one of their Cylon clubhouse meetings wherein they share their fears about Starbuck (Adama locked her up for thinking she was a Cylon, and they really are Cylons) and their speculation about the final Cylon. Tyrol mentions that Baltar was chatting with D’anna about the Final Five on the algae planet, so he might know something. They decide that the best way to get through Baltar’s little cult and find out what he knows is to appeal to his libido by having Tory seduce him.

And then—oh boy, this is weird. Tory chats him up in the mess a bit, and then Head Baltar shows up and basically convinces Baltar that Tory’s “special” and he should sleep with her.

One: Baltar, your new outfit is silly. It’s like you’re trying to be a male model. You’re wearing a cravat. Stop it.

Two: Baltar interacting with Head Baltar is H I L A R I O U S. At one point Baltar asks Head Baltar whether he’s really Six, and Head Baltar reponds that Six would have no reason to disguise herself. Baltar says he has a good point and his doppelgänger nods in a gesture of “Yes, we both know how brilliant I am.”

Three: OH MY GOD HEAD BALTAR IS APPEARING TO BALTAR NOW.

Four: Is… is the sort of General Hallucination Person (Head Six and  Head Baltar) the final Cylon? Because it’s weird that four of the Final Five plan for Tory to seduce Baltar, and then the hallucination shows up to essentially make that happen. Baltar was really suspicious of Tory before Head Baltar showed up and started singing her merits. And the Cylons see the Final Five as a sort of collective unit… maybe the Big Boss Cylon has been on the Galactica the whole time, waiting for the others to show up. Maybe he was the one who triggered them.

Or maybe not. Cylons are tricky, and I’m not exactly 100% on my predictions.

Later on Tory and Baltar do get jiggy with it, and Tory explains that she’s always cried during sex and she doesn’t know why. Baltar calls it an “abundance of feeling,” and Tory says that it could be worse: She could be a Cylon. I don’t know about that, Baltar says. Cylons have feelings just like the rest of us. We were all created by the one true God. I’ve gotten tired of denying that truth.

Somewhere Head Six is doing a fistpump. Finally.

Adama visits Starbuck in the brig, and she tries to convince him that she knows the way to Earth, to no avail. Her stunt with the President really pissed him off, but on her end she judges him for not having the guts to defy Roslin. He snaps, pushing her to the ground and starting to choke the life out of her.

But something she said clearly got to him, as in a later scene he defends Starbuck to Roslin. What if she’s telling the truth?, he asks. What if her coming back was a miracle? On the other side, Roslin’s not absolutely convinced that Starbuck’s a Cylon, but she’s not willing to take that chance. She put her life in front of a bullet as if it has no meaning, she argues. Yeah, because she’s Starbuck, and she has capital-I Issues.

Roslin tells Adama that he wants to believe that Starbuck’s not a Cylon, because otherwise he’ll have lost her and Lee, and eventually her too. Adama comes back with a bit of psychoanalysis of his own: You’re terrified that you’re not some great prophesized leader destined to get humanity to Earth. Your death might be as meaningless as everyone else’s. Though she doesn’t respond, you can tell the accusation cuts deep. After he leaves she fiddles with her glorious red hair, which starts to come out, and she starts crying.

In this scene you really get to see that Roslin’s not just depressed because her cancer’s come back, or scared, or frustrated—she’s angry. After all she’s done, all that she’s been through, she’s probably going to die before she completes her final mission, and that pisses her off. This woman who once had such faith in miracles and signs now refuses to admit that one might be right in front of her because she’s not willing to risk having one of her final actions being inadvertently bringing about the destruction of humanity. It’s a wonderful bit of character development.

Meanwhile Lee has two ceremonies to celebrate his leaving the service: An informal party with the pilots, and a fancy one that you know is supposed to be emotionally poignant because there’s bagpipe music. He exchanges a few words of goodbye with Dee, who apparently is now officially his ex-wife.

Wait. Hold up. Dee left Lee in the season finale, but that didn’t exactly seem like a resolution of their plotline. The reason for her leaving was Lee’s courtroom-related douchebaggery, but he redeemed himself at the end of the episode. Even Adama, a card-carrying member of the I Hate Gaius Baltar Club, thinks so! After a whole season of belaboring the relationship drama, of do-I-really-love-my-wife, do-I-choose-her-over-Starbuck, that’s it? Dee just leaves, and whatever conversations still needed to take place happened off-screen and aren’t even referenced? Because there were absolutely still conversations that needed to take place. Dee was incredibly important to Lee’s storyline during season two. Do we not get to see what she thought of his big courtroom speech? After Lee’s big “I’m going work on this marriage!” character moment, are we just supposed to accept that he just… stopped?

Ugh. Whatever. I haven’t made my feelings toward last season’s romance plotline a secret, and if the writers realized that certain aspects of it didn’t work and say sayonara to them during season four…. well, there are worse things to leave unresolved. But if this means the show ditches Dee, I’m going to be so angry. I don’t necessarily think that it will, but after all but one episode of season two reduced Dee’s narrative purpose to Lee Adama’s Wife… well, I’m a little worried. Don’t disappoint me, show. You’re better than that.

Lee visits Starbuck and tells her about his new gig: Being Caprica’s representative in the Quorum. It means he’ll be buddy-buddying up with Zarek, but hey, politics feels like it’s what he’s always been meant to do. They wish each other good luck on their respective journeys and have an emotional bit of kiss ‘n’ hugging. Lee tells Starbuck that he believes her, which warms my heart. The fleet makes another jump, which sets Starbuck screaming again.

But then Adama pulls through: He brings her to the flight deck and says he’s sending her, Helo, and a small hand-picked crew out in a ship called the Demetrius to look for Earth. He doesn’t know if she’s right about knowing the way, but he can’t take the chance that she is and not do anything about it. He’s sick of turning away from things he wants to believe in, and he doesn’t want to lose her, so he’s giving her a chance.

Adama, you deserve this:

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

Three episodes into the final season and a main character’s already kicked the bucket. Help me, I’m scared.

The Ties That Bind

Oh, Cally! You were never my favorite, but I didn’t want this for you! Never this.

We already knew she and Tyrol had some marital problems post-New Caprica, but it turns out that since Tyrol found out he’s a Cylon things have gotten worse. Tyrol’s never around to help raise their baby, and Cally’s started suffering from depression. A combination of that, stress over their marriage, and a general lack of sleep has caused her to be a little, shall we say, on edge. Late one night she goes to the bar to look for her husband and finds him getting all buddy-buddy with Tory. She causes a scene—as she has every right to do if her husband’s leaving her to raise her son alone so he can cheat on her.

As awful as Tyrol’s being, I kind of… understand his position, a little bit? Not that I in any way condone what he’s doing, but he’s the only one of the newbie Cylons with any really strong personal attachments. Tigh’s wife is dead. Anders’ marriage is pretty much over. Who knows about Tory. Tyrol has a wife and a newborn baby! He has all this other stuff on top of adjusting to the fact that he’s a Cylon. Don’t get me wrong, he’s skill a skeevy douchewaffle, and the way he shows absolutely no remorse for the way he’s treating Cally makes me want to hit him over the head with a two-by-four. But it’s gotta be a weird time for him, is what I’m saying.

Tyrol tries to gaslight Cally by telling her that she just imagined Tyrol and Tory being way too close for just friends. She’s having none of it, but Doc Cottle tells her Tyrol might have a point: You’re fatigued and on antidepressants, he says, and that can make you paranoid. Cally doesn’t doubt that her husband’s cheating on her—it’s later revealed that she saw them kiss in the bar—but she has begun to doubt her own sanity.

Let’s take a break to check in on Lee, Junior Politician. At a press conference meant to announce his new position as a Quorum representative reporters instead straight-up ignore him and dogpile on Roslin, asking her about the ship that Starbuck took. Roslin passes the buck to Adama since it’s a military matter, and he refuses to answer any of the yelling journos’ questions. Welcome to politics, Lee!

Roslin totally doesn’t approve of Adama giving Starbuck the Demetrius to go look for Earth, not least because the press has gotten wind of it and she’ll have to cover his ass for quite some time. The Demetrius is also a bee in Zarek’s bonnet: He sees it as a symptom of Roslin’s newfound tendency toward secrecy. He chats with Lee about it, bringing up that Roslin still holds a grudge against him for his involvement in Baltar’s trial and saying he hopes Lee will be a crusader for Truth, Justice, and the American Caprican Way.

He has his first chance at an official quorum meeting, where he calls Roslin on the contents of a classified file that Zarek gave him. In that file, labelled Executive Order 112, are plans to create a system of tribunals that Roslin would have pretty much complete control over. The rest of the representatives, clearly sick of being shut down by the President, jump on the opportunity to prove that their Great Leader is doing something dictatorial. Roslin recovers quickly, explaining that Order 112 is only the first draft of a comprehensive legal system that eventually would’ve been taken to the Quorum for approval. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

It’s clear that Roslin’s pissed at Lee, and for all that Roslin has her reasons for keeping things secret, I can’t be on her side here. It looks like she has nothing but contempt for both her fellow politicians and the idea of media oversight, and while the Quorum members may very well be deserving of some of that… you’re the head of a representative government, Roslin. You have to at least try to work with the representatives. Her attitude goes hand-in-hand with how she refused to accept even the possibility of trusting Starbuck last episode: She knows that she’s going to die soon, so she’s going to do whatever she has to do—become whoever she has to become, break whatever rules she has to break—to get humanity to Earth before that happens. It’s noble, but all these decisions she’s making shouldn’t be exclusively hers to make.

Over on the Demetrius Starbuck’s leading her team—which includes Helo, Gaeta, Seelix, Athena, and Anders—to Earth. Well, that’s what’s happening in theory. The reality is that Starbuck’s just poring over star charts and ordering the ship to trek around in seemingly random directions. Aside from Helo and Anders everyone thinks she’s crazy and resents her for leading them on a wild goose chase.

Side note: I want Starbuck and Gaeta to have an Odd Couple-style sitcom. The degree to which they hate each other gives me life. He undercuts her authority at every turn. She tried to have him executed that one time. Forced to live together, will they get get along? Spoiler alert: No.

Starbuck’s gotten way antisocial since coming back from the not-really-dead, and Anders goes to her quarters to ask her if maybe she’ll cut it out for the sake of her coworkers, some of whom (read: Him. And Nice Guy Helo. That should be a meme.) actually want to be there. Starbuck ridicules him for still caring about their marriage and says she only proposed because it was safe and easy, and he was pathetic enough to go along with it. Ouch. Ander’s counterargument is that he knows they mean something to one another even if she’s so scared she’s putting up an aggressive front. The two engage in a bit of angry fighting that evolves into a bit of angry sexing.

Stop it, you two.

In their state of post-coital bliss—though it’s more like post-coital brooding-and-not-looking-at-one-another—Starbuck ask Anders whether she seems different to him. Because she sure feels different—disconnected somehow, like everything is far away and she’s only watching herself go through the motions. Anders looks at her like “oh frak.” When you’ve got a guy who just found out he’s a Cylon worrying about your mental state, things must be bad.

Over with the Cylon fleet the divide brought about by Brother Cavil deciding to lobotomize the Raiders seems to have gotten better. He tells Six that he wants them to all get along again, so he’ll stop cutting up the Raiders. He even acquiesces to Six’s request to unbox the D’annas. To re-dowload her they have to go to a server about six jumps away, but when they get there the half of the fleet the Cavils, Dorals, and Simons control turns on the half the Sixes, Eights, and Leobens control. Boomer, the only Eight on Cavil’s side, objects to him shooting the other ships down, since without a Resurrection ship in the area they’ll die for good. But Brother Cavil’s just like

Does this mean D’anna won’t be coming back? Damn you, BSG! You give me hope for more Lucy Lawless only to snatch it out of my grasp!

Also: In one of the Cylon scenes a Centurion would only escort Brother Cavil off the ship once Six told it “please.” They may be murderous machines, but they’re sticklers for etiquette.

I started this recap being depressed about Cally, and I’m going to end it the same way. She sees a note meant for Tyrol, telling him to meet in a certain time and place. She assumes the note is from Tory; in fact, it’s from Tigh. She thinks by spying on the meeting she’s going to catch her husband out at some extramarital boning, but instead she finds out that her husband, Tory, and Tigh are Cylons.

Though thoroughly in the midst of shock, Cally still manages to hightail it back to her quarters before she’s discovered. But Tory sees an open wall hatch and figures out that she was there. Tyrol gets back to their rooms shortly after Cally does and opens up to his traumatized wife, telling her he never had an affair, he really wants to make their marriage work, and he’d like it if they maybe had another kid one day.

Cally rallies long enough to beat Tyrol over the head with a wrench, grab his keys, and run away with Nicky. Go, girl. At this point I’m screaming Go to Adama! Oh my God, Cally, GO! TO! ADAMA! But I can’t blame her for not doing that. She was in a bad mental place before she found out that her husband was a Cylon, and now on top of all that she’s in shock. She’s supremely out of it.

Instead she takes herself and her infant son—who, surprise, is half-Cylon—to the airlock! Don’t do it, Cally! No!

And she doesn’t get a chance to, because Tory shows up and convinces this poor traumatized woman not to kill herself, because Tyrol only just found out about being a Cylon and you don’t want to off your kid, do you?  That last part gets through to Cally, and she hands her son to Tory. CALLY, NO! Sure enough, Tory knocks her to the ground, takes Nicky to safety, and opens the airlock.

The final scene shows us Adama breaking the news to Tyrol, who’s sitting there still as a statue. It looks like he’s in shock, but we know he really doesn’t care all that much.

This show. This frakking show.

Escape Velocity

OK, so maybe I judged Tyrol a bit harshly saying he didn’t care about his wife being dead. Turns out he does care. Finding out he’s a Cylon doesn’t mean he didn’t love his wife. But he’s also being a total jerk about everything, because Cylon identity crisis. For all Tigh’s talk about “being the man we want to die as,” Tyrol’s awful close to pulling a Tory and deciding to abandon his humanity all together.

We start the episode at Cally’s funeral, where a shellshocked Tyrol pulls Tigh and Tory aside to try and get some emotional support. But emotional support wasn’t their thing even when they thought they were human, and they tell him off for not keeping their super-secret connection super-secret enough. Later the trio meets in Tyrol’s room, and it comes out that Tory didn’t spill the beans about airlocking Cally. As far as Tyrol knows he drove his wife to kill herself.

Tigh and Tory serve as the angel and demon, respectively, on Tyrol’s angst-ridden shoulders. Tory tells him that God made them all perfect, and since they’re all perfect they don’t need to feel any guilt and can do whatever they want. Tigh’s response is “What’s that? Baltar’s crap?” Self-affirmation? Feeling good about yourself? Pah! What you’re feeling, he tells Tyrol, is what a man feels when his wife days in a way that’s kinda-sorta his fault. “Be a man, Chief,” he says. “Feel what you gotta feel.” Don’t push it down like Tory says. But don’t risk everyone else, either.

You hear that, Tyrol? Feeling are manly! MANLY emotions! GRARRRRGH!

Later in the episode we see exactly how badly Tyrol is doing: He’s unfocused at work and almost causes Racetrack’s ship to blow up. It’s completely to be expected if his wife just died, but any time anyone suggests giving him a break or even shows him sympathy he completely flies off the handle.

All that comes to a head when Adama visits him in the bar and offers to give him some time off off or let him take more shifts. Adama’s been working through his own preemptive grief with Roslin dying, but if he expected any poignant tidbits from Tyrol he’s way off the mark. Tyrol hallucinates Adama saying Cally couldn’t take being married to a Cylon and giving birth to a “half-breed abomination,” and he—not to put too fine a point on it—loses his sh*t. He goes off on his dead wife, yelling to the whole bar about how he only married “that shriek” because the one he really loved, meaning Boomer, turned out to be a Cylon. When he says he didn’t pick “this life,” it seems to the barflies that he’s talking about marriage to Cally, but we know he means something different: Being human. Still, with all that talk about how Adama’s not in “our club,” you’re not being exactly subtle, dude. A royally pissed Adama eventually shuts him down and tells him that he’s being reassigned.

Tigh’s been having an awful time himself, because when is he not? He could be frolicking through a field of alcohol-producing daisies and still gripe about how the sun’s too bright. He’s been visiting Caprica every day, and she’s noticed that something’s off. But he only opens up as to the true nature of his visits when he starts to hallucinate that Caprica is Ellen. What he really wants to know, he tells her over the course of his next few visits—one of which starts with him watching her sleep, weird—is how she manages to live with the guilt over her part in the destruction of humanity.

You’re not being particularly subtle yourself, Tigh. Asking a Cylon who knows there are five other mystery Cylons how she deals with massive, species-betraying levels of guilt?

The key, Caprica-as-normal-Caprica says, is to let myself feel pain, because it’s how I learn. She turns into Ellen and starts talking about how being in love with a human made her understand that she’d betrayed the one she loved. Tigh sees Ellen, but it’s still Caprica talking, so the human in question is Baltar. When she says his name Tigh snaps and yells at her not to talk about him.

Oh man. Tigh just wants to hear his wife say she loves him. After he killed her for collaborating with the Cylons, when he is a Cylon. He sees himself as having betrayed her and, in a way, the entire rest of humanity, too.

Caprica-as-Ellen explains to Tigh that when you’re in pain you have clarity. So Caprica-as-Caprica starts beating the bejeesus out of him, which is one way to do it, I suppose. Except then she realizes that’s not working, even though he likes being punched—probably thinks he deserves it—and starts to get with the smooching instead.

Uh…

I’m going to talk about the other characters now.

Over in the hippie commune Tory wakes Baltar up by plucking his hair out then proceeds to go all femme fatale by talking about pain and pleasure and “being bad.” They’re interrupted by the splinter fundamentalist group Sons of Ares storming the commune looking for Baltar, who manages to hide. Here’s a tip, boneheads: If you have two minutes to find someone before the fuzz shows up, don’t use a person-obscuring smokebomb.

The attack makes Baltar realize that the proponents of the old Gods won’t just sit still and let his fancy new one-God religion do its thing. He’s reluctant to do anything about it, but Head Six convinces him to go on the offensive. She falls back on that old standby: Appealing to his vanity. The man who takes on the Gods will be like a God himself, she says. Baltar’s response is that none of the cult stuff is about personal glory—his only concern is that people are being targeted for what they believe.

Don’t get me wrong. During this episode we see perhaps an unparalleled level of sincerity in Baltar. I believe he genuinely does care about the members of his hippie cult. But would he care about them quiiiiite so much if they didn’t worship him and house him and provide with him unlimited sex? I’m thinking no.

Regardless, Baltar leads his cult members on a field trip to some religious ceremony, where he proceeds to cause a giant scene, wrecking the religious accoutrements and calling out the old religion for being complete and total BS.

Later on Adama and Roslin chat about the whole Baltar issue. Adama is sympathetic toward him, at least insofar as what the Sons of Ares did is completely unconscionable. But as far as Roslin’s concerned Baltar is Satan incarnate, and if he’s attacked it’s only because he’s a sh*tstain who goes around provoking people. Honestly, I would not be surprised if Roslin had something to do with the Sons of Ares attack—or maybe she knew it was going to happen and decided not to mention it. At this point someone could kill Baltar and drag his body around the Galactica and the most she’d do is issue them a citation for littering.

But still, they can’t have a religious war breaking out. So Roslin goes to visit Baltar in the brig and lay down the law. Basically she’s going to pursue the Sons of Ares and enact new crowd control measures that’ll make it so his people won’t be attacked again. But I’m dying, she tells him, and as the great hereafter approacheth I’m getting less and less tolerant of your bullcrap. You don’t stir anything up, and I won’t move heaven and Earth to drag you to the depths of hell with me when I die. Capiche?

I Googled “Laura Roslin mic drop gif” and didn’t find anything. I am disappoint, Battlestar Galactica fandom. I am disappoint.

Also: I love her wig. I mean, no, I hate her wig, because it means she’s dying of cancer, and also Mary McDonnell‘s normal hair is lovely. But I love how it’s this dark brown, severe slash of hair. It’s her business wig.

At a Quorum meeting Lee objects to the crowd control measure Roslin’s enacted, since instead of protecting Baltar’s cult what it basically ends up doing is making it so they can’t meet at all. Roslin doesn’t even pretend that she’s at all concerned with upholding the values of religious freedom or freedom of assembly: This law is meant to screw over Baltar, because he’s dangerous to humanity even when he doesn’t have a gaggle of worshipful peons trailing behind him. Lee insists, against Roslin’s wishes, that the Quorum be allowed to vote on the bill.

Roslin quietly moves the bill proposing that it be punishable by death to have a name rhyming with Fry-us Maltar to the bottom of the stack. It will have to wait for another day.

Meanwhile, a marine is guarding the door of the Casa de la Hippie Cult, refusing to let Baltar in because there are already 12 people inside. Baltar objects, obviously, since he lives there, but the marine refuses to budge. Head Six tries to get him to challenge the guard, which he doesn’t want to do—he only consents when she promises he won’t be hurt.

Of course when he steps forward the marine pistol whips him. I’m sorry, says Head Six, did I say I promise you won’t be hurt? I think you need to get your hearing checked. She physically manhandles him into getting up again and again, which only earns him more beatings. Before it can go on for too long Lee runs up and announces that the Quorum voted to undo Roslin’s crowd control measures.

Good on you, Lee. Not only does he stand up against Roslin—who’s on the warpath as far as Baltar’s concerned—but once he gets the cult’s right of assembly restored he thinks Hey, maybe they’d like to know about this. I’m going to go let them know, even though I have no respect for Baltar on a personal level, because it’s the right thing to do.

Back in hippie commune-ville, Baltar slips into sermon mode before his adoring crowd (and Lee). I’ve always been a selfish man, he says, but it doesn’t matter. Something in the universe loves me. That something loves each and every one of us, even with our faults. All of us are perfect just the way we are. We have to love ourselves, because if we don’t, how can we love others?”

Achoo!

“We may do awful, awful things, but it doesn’t matter, because the Cylon God thinks we’re perfect just the way we are.” That would be the spiritual philosophy Mr. Self Preservation comes around to, wouldn’t it? Don’t take my gif usage the wrong way—I don’t think Baltar’s trying to trick or manipulate anyone here. In this moment he’s drinking his own Kool-Aid; in fact, this represents a great character moment because it very well may be the first time we’ve seen him actually believe everything he’s saying, with zero ulterior motives or reservations.

Not that the ulterior motives won’t come back. And everyone else (save, I’m guessing, Lee) buys into his sermon too, which is problematic when this great “love thyself” philosophy is the end result of years of psychological manipulation on Head Six’s part. She told Baltar that he’s the Chosen One, that it’s OK if he screws over humanity to save his own skin because nothing he can do can make God stop loving him.

And now, after all the “I believe in God! No, really! He’s going to help me out of this jam, right?” false starts, she’s finally converted him.

In an effort to avoid spoilers, comments on this post have been locked. However, Jill and Susana will be reading comments over at our Facebook page, so if there’s anything you’d like to say in response to this post head on over that way. Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here, and next week’s recap is here. Have a (non-spoilery, for the love of God) comment? Hit me up on Twitter.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

Wherein Roslin gets (a different) religion and there are some redshirts. Faith in particular is so good.

The Road Less Traveled

Starbuck’s not doing too well.

She and her crew have two days left on the Demetrius before they have to rendezvous with the fleet, but they’re no closer to finding the location of Earth. Even Helo, her one real friend on the ship, is starting to think that she’s gone off the deep end. Everyone else, Athena in particular, is about ready to mutiny like Long John Silver and the Muppet crew in Muppet Treasure Island (yeah, yeah, and I guess in the original book, too). They make no effort to hide their incredulity when Starbuck says she’s going to take a Viper out on patrol. Helo tells ‘em to can it, ya jackasses, because they’ll be back with the fleet in a few days and they can damn well keep their lips buttoned ’til then.

Turns out the crew was more than a little justified: When Starbuck and Hot Dog are out on patrol they run across an all-but-destroyed Cylon Heavy Raider, and when Hot Dog asks what he should do—which is the sort of thing that Starbuck, as the Captain, should tell him—she just goes all spacey-eyed and flies right toward it.

Turns out one of the last remaining Leobens is on the ship. The evil half of the Cylon fleet destroyed the slightly-less-evil half, but there’s still one Basestar full of Leobens, Eights, and Sixes floating out there in the dead of space. Leoben needs Starbuck’s help to bring the malfunctioning Basetsar to safety. In return, the Cylons—specifically the hybrid, which has been asking to see Starbuck—will help humanity find Earth.

Starbuck brings Leoben onboard, which needless to say no one else is particularly pleased about. Athena, having more first-hand knowledge of the Cylons’ tendency toward psychological manipulation than anyone else, is especially distrustful. Starbuck orders that Leoben be taken too her quarters, and everyone does this:

But minus the snazzy wigs and waistcoats.

All this time Anders has been out on patrol, and when he comes back and Helo fills him in he’s a bit… well, nut-punchingly angry is one way to put it. Leoben is the dude who kept his wife locked up for months on New Caprica, after all. He walks in on the pair of them being closer than two people strictly need to be when they’re working on an art project. Anders jumps on Leoben and demands, against Starbuck’s protestations, that he be taken to the brig. Helo and the marines are all too willing to comply.

In the brig Leoben gives Anders a speech about destiny and people being meant for more than they seem. It’s the same sort of thing we’ve seen a few times so far this season—the “Does this Cylon know about me, or is it the standard flowery crypticness?” moment. We know none of the normal seven Cylons know who any of the Final Five are, but Anders doesn’t, and the uncertainty’s messing with his head. He threatens to shoot Leoben, which is when he fesses up about the Cylon civil war and his deal to get the humans to Earth.

Helo and Anders appear to be considering it, but Athena straight-up says Starbuck is too cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs to make the decision. Maybe they should take matters into their own hands so she won’t lead them, and the rest of the human fleet, into the trap. Helo’s response is a glorious “Oh hell no! You think you’re going to mutiny? On my watch?! I don’t care if you are my wife, you shut that down right now.”

Turns out Starbuck’s been creeping and has heard the whole debate. She says they’re going to take Leoben up on his offer and head to the Basestar as soon as they can pull the coordinates from the Raider. Suck it, fools.

A redshirt named  Mathias is inspecting Leoben’s Raider when it explodes, killing her instantly. Starbuck, assuming Leoben rigged the ship, proceeds to beat the crap out of him. He maintains his innocence but still goads her on, telling her that this time if she kills him he won’t resurrect. But she decides not to kill Cylon Skeevy McProphet after all. Leoben tells her that the reason she feels different now is that she’s transformed into “an angel blazing with the light of God” who will lead her people to salvation.

Over in the mess hall Mathias’ death has majorly freaked people out, and the eulogy Starbuck delivers doesn’t do anything to make people think she’s not crazy. Well no wonder: The jist of it is “Mathias’ death was stupid, and it was my fault, and I have to live with that.” Starubuck, once you get back to the Galactica you might want to hunt down Adama for a few pointers on inspiring speeches. Not depressing. Inspiring.

Starbuck breaks the news that they’re not rendezvousing with the fleet—their mission is to find Earth, and the Basestar will help them do that, so they’re going. After she leaves Helo has to physically restrain a guy who’s ready to go after Starbuck and… try to beat her up, probably. Heh. Good luck with that, weenie-man. He makes a crack about how of course Helo’s the one to protect Leoben, because he’s a Cylon-lover. TOO FAR, BRO, TOO FAR! Helo pistol-whips him, and it doesn’t inspire joy in me like the time Gaeta stabbed Baltar in the neck with a pen (nothing can even approach that), but it was still cool. One mutineer down, the entire rest of the ship to go.

The episode ends with Helo’s reservations about Starbuck’s leadership capacity overcoming his loyalty. He asks her to reconsider going after the Basestar; when she says thanks but no thanks, he straight up refuses to follow her order to jump.

She promotes Gaeta to XO, but he also refuses, because… of course he does. She could ask him to pass the salt and he’d be a passive-aggressive little jerkwad about it. I love him more than is probably reasonable.

Helo says he’s removing Starbuck from command, which makes her look like she’s about to wreck some shit. But there’s not much she can do. The mutineers don’ mutinied.

If we get anything more with Anders trying to fix his relationship with Starbuck I’m just going to point to this episode and say “No, dude. Your marriage is over.” He didn’t even make a token effort to take her side during the mutiny. Yeah, I get that his newfound toaster status means he has other things on his mind. And he may very well agree that Starbuck’s making all the wrong decisions. But still, Anders! Support your wife! Or, at the very least, don’t mutiny against her.

But this episode wasn’t just the dissolution of Starbuck and Helo’s beautiful, beautiful friendship (quiet sobbing). Back on the Galactica Baltar’s a full-on cult leader now, giving sermons that go out to the entire fleet over pirate radio. Tyrol’s feelings toward him aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy, but at Tory’s convincing he attends a service. It would seem that Baltar’s message of forgiving oneself for past evil deeds might strike a chord with Tyrol, considering his guilt over his role in Cally’s death, but instead the sermon ends with Tyrol holding Baltar down and choking him half to death. To be fair, Baltar did single him out mid-speech and ask him to join his hippie cult take his hand because that’s what Cally would want him to do. Putting a man on the spot and using his dead wife against him? In public? When you didn’t even know the dead wife in question? Jerk move, Baltar. And not exactly smart, especially given how Tyrol earlier told him that there are some things—like, say, betraying humanity to Cylons on New Caprica—that are just plain unforgivable. What do you think was going to happen?

But by the end of the episode the two of them seem prepared to make amends: Baltar comes to Tyrol’s room in the dead of night (I think I read a fanfic like this once), dressed as an extremely fashionable Unabomber, to ask forgiveness for his massive dickery. He admits that it was presumptuous to mention Cally and that he has committed unconscionable crimes. But he’s been offered a chance at redemption because [dramatic irony alert] he’s accepted who he really is.

Yeah, you’re a giant skeezball.

Baltar doesn’t want Tyrol’s forgiveness because he genuinely feels bad for what he said. I don’t know, maybe on some level he does, but on the whole he just wants to make himself feel better, wants to shore up this mental image of himself as the benevolent shepherd of an adoring flock. And then there’s something Tory told him earlier in the episode: Roslin doesn’t take his group seriously because it’s only managed to attract people on the “fringes.”

But anyway, Tyrol seems to accept his apology. He shakes his hand, anyway. And I can’t blame him for turning to religion—or at least choosing to give up his hatred of Baltar—in his time of crisis. Things have continued to be awful for him, as we see in this episode: He’s begun to suspect that Cally was killed. (Watch your back, Tory!) One scene had him ready to literally blow his brains out. And Tigh’s giving him grief for not adequately “pulling himself together.”

We also find out that Tigh’s been spending more time with Caprica, whom he was macking on last episode.

To finish out this recap with a less ehhhhh-inducing mental image, here’s a gif of a baby panda going down a slide!

Faith

I would like to issue a humble apology to Anders. After I wrote a whole paragraph giving him crap for not defending Starbuck in the mutiny, “Faith” starts out with him single-handedly shutting the mutiny down.

By shooting Gaeta. One of my favorite characters shoots another one of my favorite characters.

BSG, what makes you think that’s OK?!

What happens is that Helo orders Gaeta to jump the ship back to the Galactica so Adama can figure out what to do with Leoben’s proposal. Anders holds a gun on Gaeta and demands that he abort the jump, and when he doesn’t, he shoots him in the leg. Starbuck immediately jumps into combat medic mode and binds the wound, because even if you have personal differences with someone you’re a soldier and shouldn’t let that stop you from performing your duty (more on that later, Gaeta).

Starbuck admits that taking the Demetrius to the Basestar is too much of a risk—she’ll just take Leoben on a Raptor and go herself. She asks Athena to go as well, since she’ll need to know if the Cylons are cooking up a trap. And Anders and New Caprica resistance member Jean Barolay offer to go as well, the latter because she’s a Starbuck fangirl who wants to be there when she finds Earth.

An emotionally poignant moment from a minor character whom we haven’t seen in a while? I smell a redshirt.

By the time they set off they have about 14 hours to complete their mission. After that the Demetrius will have to jump back to the Galactica with our without them. They don’t make the rendezvous, they get separated from the fleet. A wounded Gaeta tries to make Helo promise that he won’t let Doc Cottle amputate his leg, even though if they wait until the clock runs out to go back to the Galactica there won’t be much else Cottle can do. Essentially, he’s trying to see if Helo might potentially say “Ah, screw it” and return to the Galactica before Starbuck and her crew gets back.

Gaeta m’boy, it’s time for an

You need to stop letting your emotions rule your decision-making so much. It’s becoming a problem.

Your megacrush on Baltar blinded you to what an obviously self-interested skeev he is. You sided with him on New Caprica, and almost got executed because of it. Then your hatred of Baltar led you to perjure yourself, and while nothing bad has come of that (yet), it was still frakking stupid.

And now you want Helo to abandon the Basestar crew so you won’t lose your leg. I get it. You’re in pain. You’re scared. That’s most of what’s going on here, and I feel for you. But part of it is that you hate Starbuck, and you’re letting that cloud your judgement. There’s no way sacrificing five people, not to mention a chance to find Earth, is the right call. You know that. You’re a smart dude.

Unfortunately, you can also be a vindictive tool.

I love you, and I don’t want you to lose your leg either. You’ve been through enough.

But you need to cut it out.

Intervention over. Bring it in for a hug, Felix.

Starbuck and co. jump into a warzone filled with destroyed Basestars, but Starbuck says she can “hear” something that indicates the non-destroyed Basestar is around somewhere. “The unstuck music vibrates in all of us,” Leoben clarifies in a decidedly un-clear way, “Few can hear it. Kara’s one of the few.”

Yeeeeah, Leoben. You’re really not helping Starbuck seem like she’s not a Cylon. Judging by their facial expressions, Athena and Anders (poor Anders) can hear the “unstuck music” (WTF, Leoben?) too.

Starbuck sees the Basestar where it’s circling around Saturn (ohai Saturn!) like a comet. Exactly like the comet Starbuck saw on her way back from Earth, in fact. Except it must’ve been a vision, since when the Cylon civil war broke out after she was already back to the fleet. Whatever. Point is, part of Starbuck’s vision has been proven non-crazy.

On the Basestar Athena gets a social call from a whole slew of fellow Eights, who according to Leoben have started quite the Athena fan club since she went against her programming and ditched Cylonitude for the human side of the Force. The leader asks Athena for help rebelling against the Sixes, since they used to know what they were doing but now they’re making bad call after bad call.

Put your big girl panties on and deal with it, Athena responds. You pick a side and you stick with it; you start switching when things get rough and eventually you won’t have anything.

She speaks the truth. The human leadership has done some awful things to her—like kidnapping her baby and lying about it, for one—but if she hadn’t stayed loyal who knows where she’d be?

The head Six refuses to let Starbuck see the hybrid—apparently Leoben wasn’t exactly authorized to promise an audience. But Leoben and Starbuck pull a good cop-bad cop routine and convince Six that the Cylons need an alliance with the humans, and the only way they can get one is if they take a field trip to the hybrid’s room.

A bit of tech chat goes on in the Cylon CIC—Athena points out that the hybrid will have to be pulled offline in order to link up their ships, which Six objects to on the grounds that it might kill her. Blah de blah blah—Six tries to make things go a certain way, but that way is stupid, so she folds. It’s a theme for this episode. Anders tries to dip his hand into the Cylons’ liquid computer thing, which is stupid—you’re a secret Cylon, dude. Emphasis on secret. What will you do if the computer responds to you and someone notices?—but also kind of ballsy. Anyway, the group moves on, so he doesn’t get to see if he can use his Cylon powers to pull up Minesweeper.

Back at the Raptor my redshirt prediction comes true: Back on New Caprica Barolay brutally murdered one of the Sixes, who’s been traumatized by it ever since and takes her revenge by beating Barolay to death.

That doesn’t exactly help the humans and the Cylons get along. Anders holds a gun on the Six and is all ready to just kill her right there, even though Starbuck tries to talk him down. The main Six realizes the two groups are at a stalemate and pulls the trigger on her fellow Six herself, even though with the Resurrection ship out of range there’ll be no downloading into a new body. She directs a snarky comment at Starbuck afterwards about whether that’s “enough human justice for you? Blood for blood?”

Starbuck’s face.

That is the look of someone who’s the exact opposite of impressed with Six’s moralizing. Try that guilt trip crap with lesser beings like Baltar and it might get you somewhere. But Starbuck? Please.

The group visits the hybrid, who’s spewing her own brand of cryptic nonsense. Some of it sounds relevant—specifically “children of the one reborn shall find their own country”—but there’s not much sense that can be made from it. Eventually they run out of time and have to book it back to the Demetrius before Helo has to leave without them, so they decide, screw it, they’ll just pull the hybrid’s plug. Except when an Eight tries it a Centurion shoots her and the hybrid starts screaming blue murder.

Something about Eight’s blood dripping into the hybrid’s tank gives her some sort of coherency, because she reaches up to touch Starbuck’s face and actually tells her something useful: “The dying leader will know the truth of the opera house. The missing three will give you the five who have come from the home of the thirteenth.”

Six, Athena, and Starbuck figure out what that means: The “five” are the Final Five Cylons. The “home of the thirteenth,” aka the thirteenth tribe of humans, is Earth, which the hybrids know how to get to. And “the missing three” is D’anna, who knows what the Final Five look like.

Are we getting D’anna back this time? Are we really? It’s not gonna be like that time Cavil said he was bringing her back and then went all turncoat?

I need more Lucy Lawless. You don’t understand.

All this is great, albeit not for Anders, who has quite the “Oh, sh*t” moment when it’s revealed that part of the plan to find Earth involves allying with someone who’ll be able to out him as one of the Final Five. Still, on the whole, reassuring. Something else the hybrid said to Starbuck, not so much: “You are the harbinger of death. You will lead them all to their end.” It’s the same thing the ur-hybrid said to Shaw in Razor, and Starbuck’s not too pleased—read: horrified—to hear it.

Leoben says Starbuck will lead humanity to salvation. The hybrid says she’ll lead humanity to its end. Could the truth lie somewhere in between, like Starbuck’s going to lead humanity a Cylon-specific salvation? Humans getting turned into Cylons or something? Hell, I don’t know.

There’s a neat moment in this scene where the dying Eight reaches out to Athena for comfort, but she refuses provide it. It’s Anders who steps up and holds her as she dies. After a few months (I guess it’s months) of struggling with the revelation that they’re Cylons, Anders, Tory, and Tyrol seem to be… settling into their Cylon identities, I guess you could say. Interestingly, they’re not too far from how they were when they thought they were human. Tyrol’s the angry one. Anders is the nice one. And Tory’s the sexy manipulative one, though we really don’t know how similar that is to how she was when she was human. (I’m willing to take the tendency toward manipulation on credit, though, since she’s in politics, and not in the wide-eyed cute way Billy was.) Tigh I don’t quite have a fix on yet.

But what about the other part of the hybrid’s prophecy: “The dying leader will know the truth of the opera house”? That relates to what’s going down on the Galactica. Roslin, who’s moved to the sickbay, meets a woman named Emily. Like Roslin, Emily’s suffering from cancer, though she’s farther along. Unlike Roslin, Emily takes comfort from Baltar’s preachings.

In spite of this fundamental difference the two of them get along and become friends—Roslin even opens up about her mother’s fight with cancer in a tearjerker of a scene. Emily explains the vision that made her come around to Baltar’s way of thinking: She was on a river, and on the other side she saw her dead family members. They told her not to be scared, that they’d cross over the river together. Roslin points out that a lot of people in their predicament have similar “visions” that seem real. But Emily says that it’s more than that; she wasn’t imagining things, she really was there. How ya like being on the other side of the vision-skeptic divide, Roslin?

The whole river thing dovetails with Baltar’s belief that there’s more to existence that we can see, and that our world is separated from the next by a river. Even if the higher power in charge of everything is the Cylon God, as Roslin argues, it’s not just the Cylon God—it belongs to all of us.

Later Roslin joins Emily on another dreamwalking excursion, except this time Emily crosses over to the other side of the river to be with her family. Sure enough, when Roslin wakes up, Emily’s died. While in the dream Roslin also sees her own group of spirits, including her mother.

And with that Roslin realizes that there might be something to this whole “Cylon God” thing. ”The dying leader will know the truth of the opera house.” Bada-boom.

Back on the Demetrius the Raptor shows up, Basestar in tow, just in time. I wonder how Adama will react to a Cylon vessel just popping up alongside the fleet. The episode ends with him talking to Roslin, kindly pooh-poohing her religious revelation (awwww, I feel like we’re in season one again) and sharing his angst that everyone seems to be leaving him: Lee quit the military, and Starbuck, Athena, Gaeta, and Helo (he refers to the last three as “those kids,” be still my heart) are overdue to return from their Demetius jaunt. Roslin assures him that, no matter what happens, they’re going to find Earth together.

In an effort to avoid spoilers, comments on this post have been locked. However, Jill and Susana will be reading comments over at our Facebook page, so if there’s anything you’d like to say in response to this post head on over that way. Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here, and next week’s recap is here. Have a (non-spoilery, for the love of God) comment? Hit me up on Twitter.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

Stuff’s about to go down. Any minute now. I can sense it.

Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?

Gaeta singing: Yay!

The reason Gaeta is singing: Oh God, no, my heart!

Let’s back up a bit.

The Demetrius and the Basetstar, with Anders, Athena, and Starbuck still on it, are prepping to jump back to the fleet. No one really knows what Adama will choose to do with the Cylon refugees, but at least he won’t blow the Basestar out of the sky as long as it and the Demetrius jump back at the same time.

So of course that mean the Demetrius’ FTL drive malfunctions at the last minute, leaving the defenseless Basestar smack dab in the middle of the fleet. And its comms are down, so they can’t even tell the Galactica “Hey! We’re good guys! Don’t shoot us!”

Nothing ever goes right for anyone on this frakking show.

On the CIC—Dee’s there! She had a generic expositionary line!—Adama goes into battle mode and orders that the Basestar be shot down. But the order is countermanded by Tigh, who senses that something weird’s going on. He’s proven right when the Demetrius shows up a few seconds later and fills Adama in.

Later on Adama asks Tigh how he knew not to fire on the ship, and Tigh responds that he didn’t know, per se. He just got lucky. Poor guy’s walking a tight rope. And Adama definitely knows something’s up.

The Six’s leader and Starbuck explain the deal to Rosin and Adama: There was a Civil War, they want to unbox D’anna and find out who the Final Five are, the Final Five can help you find Earth, yada yada yada. Tory and Tigh, also in the room, are absolutely horrified. After all the care they’ve taken to keep their Cylon identity a secret, D’anna’s just going to waltz in and spill the space beans.

Adama, Roslin, and Six strike a deal: The Cylons will lead the Galactica to the resurrection hub, which controls all the resurrection ships and houses D’anna’s boxed-up consciousness. Once D’anna gets retrieved the Galactica can blow the resurrection hub up, destroying the ability of all Cylons to download into new bodies. Then the Basestar will take the Five and go on its merry way.

Oh, did I forget to mention?, adds Six. The Final Five are in the fleet. That’s why the Raiders refused to fight you at the nebula.

Later on Adama, Roslin, Tigh, and Helo have a private meeting to decide “LOL, that’s what we told the Cylons we’d do. Now what will we actually do?” Tigh, convinced that he and his fellow Cylons will be killed on the spot if they’re discovered, tries for all he’s worth to convince Adama to ignore unboxing D’anna and just destroy the hub. But no one listens to him, because his plan is stupid. Forego this chance to find Earth because, hey, we have Roslin’s visions! Roslin’s visions are great! I’ve always thought so! You’re not being subtle, my cranky friend.

At one point Adama suggests that the Final Five might be rebels like the good(ish) Cylons, and Tigh’s face breaks my heart like sick puppies and crying children combined.

In the end Adama and Roslin decide to unbox D’anna, blow up the hub, and then refuse to turn over the Final Five until they get to Earth.

The news that the fleet is working together with the Cylons doesn’t go down well in the Quorum; the representatives, spurred along by Zarek, are pissed that they weren’t even consulted.

While all this is going on Roslin has something else on her mind: Baltar has been spreading rumors (a true one, as it happens) that she’s been sharing visions with Athena and Caprica. That would be the opera house vision, where Athena and Roslin are looking for Hera but Six and Baltar take her away instead. Lee presses Roslin to provide the people with some explanation, but she refuses, because who does he think she is? A duly represented public official accountable to the people or something?

Later on Roslin finds out that Tory’s been shacking up with Baltar and gives her absolute hell for it, calling her a “charter member of [Baltar's] nymph squad” and just generally being a horrible, horrible person. Tory tries to explain that she’s come to believe in his spiritual message, but Roslin’s having none of it. She orders Tory to find out who told Baltar that Roslin’s been sharing visions with the Cylons. (It turns out the fairly innocuous explanation is that Caprica told him during the trial.) “I don’t really care if you have to spend the night on your knees praying or just on your knees,” says Roslin. “I want a name.”

Jesus Christ, Roslin! Sure, Tory’s shacking up with your mortal enemy, and sure her buying into his message might give you cause to think she’s a mealy brained fool. But treating her like that is not on. I want Roslin’s cancer to do another disappearing act because… well, because I don’t want her to die of cancer, but also because I want her to be faced with all the bridges she’s been burning. There’s the Quorum, the press, the people in general. It’s been established why she’s doing it—niceties are for the people who don’t have a massive goal to accomplish and little time in which to accomplish it– but I still want her to have to confront her slide toward the dictatorial at some point.

The Cylons have been doing some plotting of their own. They’re convinced (rightly) that the humans won’t let them have the Final Five and go their own way. Once the Basestar, loaded up with Vipers from the human fleet, gets to the hub, the Cylons decide take all the humans on-board hostage and exchange them for the Final Five.

Also in this episode…. oh, it saddens me so much. Gaeta does indeed get his leg amputated.

And Anders, who’s responsible for it, forces himself to watch the surgery. There’s all this crazy stuff going on both with him and with the fleet in general, but he still feels massively guilty for what he did—what he had to do—to this one guy he probably didn’t even know really well.

Lee’s speech in the season two finale about how the awful situation humanity’s in means they’ve all had to do horrible things without looking back needs an addendum: “… but then there’s Anders.”

At various times during the episode we get some cutaway scenes of Mr. Voice of an Angel Gaeta singing in his hospital bed, which he does whenever he’s bothered by his phantom limb. During one of those times we see Baltar looking in on him, and ow, I did not expect that to hurt as much as it did.

Gaeta. My baby. My poor, poor baby.

(Also, I get the sense that the showrunners found out that his actor has a wonderful voice and was like screw it, we’re milking this, let’s cut away to Gaeta singing like five times. I approve.)

Lee visits Roslin in sickbay and tells her that the Quorum is considering a vote of no-confidence against her. They’re terrified, he explains, and they just need you to do them the courtesy of explaining to them why we’re working with the Cylons now. Roslin agrees and brings Caprica in to talk to the Quorum. It’s a pretty eloquent speech about mortality and the meaning of life, but, as Six tells Eight and Leoben later on, it didn’t win the Quorum over. Of course it didn’t. You’re probably the first one of those notoriously eeeevil skinjobs they’ve ever laid eyes on! Six decides that they should back down on taking hostages, since it’s a plan born of suspicion and fear, and what if the Final Five are watching them and judging them based on how they handle things? But the Centurions have already been won over to the previous plan, and it’ll take time to get them to back down. Six rushes off to the Galactica to meet with Adama and somehow stall the operation.

Meanwhile Roslin’s decided to take a jaunt to the baseship, a result of Starbuck mentioning what the hybrid said about the dying leader knowing the truth of the opera house. Her visions have been getting worse (I guess the hybrid’s statement wasn’t a metaphor for Roslin accepting the Cylon faith after all. Sigh.), so she high-tails it over to meet with the hybrid and figure out what’s up once and for all. She drags Baltar along since he’s in the visions too.

While this is happening Hera—who’s been doodling pictures of Six like a creepy demon Cybaby—has run off. A frantic Athena chases her through the halls and finds her with Six, who wasn’t engaged in any baby-stealing—Hera just walked right up to her. Athena, who’s been über-paranoid about Six taking her baby, loses her mind and screams that Six is never going to take her child before shooting her twice in the chest.

Wowwwww.

And it turns out all the Cylons’ plans to kidnap humans-except-wait-no-don’t! are moot, because when the hybrid gets plugged in so Roslin can talk to it it order the Baseship to jump, effectively taking Roslin, Baltar, and half the Vipers in the fleet hostage without meaning to. Whoops.

Sine Qua Non

The last episode ended with Athena shooting Six—killing her, as we find out—and the hybrid jumping the Basestar away with Roslin, Baltar, Colonial marines, and a bunch of Vipers on board. We know those two events happening at the same time was a coincidence (or, knowing BSG, divine intervention), but to everyone in the fleet it looks like the Cylons kidnapped the President as retaliation for Six being killed.

And Adama FLIPS.

HIS.

…SHOOT.

If I were an Adama/Roslin shipper* I think I’d love this episode, but I’m not, and instead I just found it kind of boring in a one step up from a monster of the week episode sort of way. Some important stuff went down, but on the whole Sine Qua Non just felt like 45 minutes you had to slog through before getting to the actual interesting bits.

Anyway. Now that Roslin’s gone Zarek has stepped up as temporary President, which poses a major problem because Adama straight-up refuses to even try and work with him. Sigh. He and Roslin are meant for each other. The Quorum’s freaking out because they don’t know what happened and Adama’s essentially shut them out, and Lee’s trying to make everyone get along, but he doesn’t have much success.

The only practical solution is to find someone to be the interim president. To do that Lee enlists the help of Mark Sheppard Romo Lampkin. He’s back, baby!

The temporary president need to be three things.

One: Popular enough that the Quorum will vote him in to replace Zarek.

Two: Someone who Adama will work with.

And three: Someone who isn’t power-hungry enough to actually want to be President. That’s the polar opposite of Zarek, who as soon as he’s in office starts talking smack about how Roslin and Adama have essentially formed a two-person dictatorship. Which is true, to be honest. But with President Zarek in office civil war won’t be far behind.

Sigh. Battlestar. Given these three criteria, it’s obvious that you’re talking about Lee here. C’mon. Do we really need a whole episode of he and Romo going “But who could our interim President possibly be?”

Meanwhile Adama’s devoting all available resources to tracking down the resurrection hub, which in theory will lead him to Roslin. Tigh asks Caprica what she knows about it, which isn’t much: The hybrids can sense where it is after it makes a jump, but they can’t figure out where it goes before it goes there.

Their relationship is so weird. Caprica is still turning into Ellen periodically, which is why Tigh’s there. But I get the sense that Caprica doesn’t know about the late Mrs. Tigh’s guest appearances. She seems to think a genuine relationship is forming, though I’m guessing she sees it as one in which Tigh has fallen for her and she can eventually use that to her advantage. But he still hates her (her-her, and probably Ellen-her too). She calls him “Saul.” He derisively refers to her as “lady.” Caprica asks Tigh if she loves him and then turns into Ellen, but the moment is interrupted when the shipwide alarm goes off. Tigh yells that he doesn’t know what kind of mind games she’s been playing, but they end here.

The cause of the alarm is that the Raptor that took Roslin to the Basestar has jumped back to the fleet, seriously damaged and with its pilot dead. Through some technical jiggery-pokery they’re able to find out where the Raptor jumped from, and when the Galactica gets there they discover a debris field full of destroyed Vipers and bits of Basestar.

It’s pretty obvious what went down: The Basestar went to the resurrection hub, destroyed it, and was destroyed itself. Adama, against all logic, insists that Roslin isn’t dead. We know he’s right, because they’re not going to randomly kill Roslin offscreen, but to the other characters in the show he looks obsessed, edging toward mentally unbalanced. That impression isn’t helped by the fact that the Galactica ditched the rest of the fleet when they went to search the debris field, leaving the vast majority of humanity completely defenseless. The Quorum, needless to say, is not pleased.

Adama started the episode unhinged—he railed on Athena for shooting Six and took her daughter away from her, and while she deserves punishment, Adama was making it personal—and he only gets worse as things progress. We’ve seen throughout this season that he has issues relating to people leaving him, and now Roslin’s been taken. She’s probably going to die if she doesn’t get back to the Galactica soon, because she needs to keep up with her cancer treatments.

All this angst comes to head in a scene where Adama confronts Tigh about his relationship with Caprica. Tigh’s tried to keep it under wraps, but now Caprica’s pregnant, so that ew-inducing-relationship cat is out of the bag.

We don’t know if Tigh and Ellen ever tried to have a kid, but I’m going to speculate that some of their chronic relationship unhappiness springs from not having been able to conceive. (Shhhh, let me have my fairly reasonably headcanon.) But now, after years of disappointment, after Ellen’s dead, when Tigh’s in a horrible time in his life, he is able to have a kid with Ellen… only it’s really a Cylon who occasionally wears Ellen’s face. Don’t mind me, I’m just going to go sit in a corner and try to get over that and probably not be able to.

Adama slams Tigh for “jeopordizing this ship with your weakness” (methinks you’re projecting a bit, eh Bill?), Tigh comes back that Adama’s risking the entire fleet to find Roslin, and the whole thing devolves into a fist fight.

… wait, hold up. Caprica is pregnant?

Eventually Adama realizes that he’s lost his objectivity and decides to take a leave of absence from the fleet so he can look for Roslin without risking the entire rest of humanity. He gives command of the Galactica to Tigh, who’s a bit taken aback, because him being Captain didn’t really work out well the first time. But that was a long time ago, Adama says. You’re not the same man you were before. (I see what you did there, show.) They have a manly bro hug, and Adama gives him one last order—give Athena her daughter back—before Tigh becomes Captain yet again.

I thought Adama might be figuring it out about Tigh being a Cylon, but surely he wouldn’t give him command of the Galactica if he were that far ahead, right? Maybe he’s still suspicious of a generic something.

Meanwhile Romo has a conversation with his cat (that’s important) wherein he finally comes to the obvious conclusion that Lee should be the interim President.

He meets Lee out in the hall and goes grade-A bonkers, holding a gun on him and yelling that you’re the perfect president, a shining beacon of hope, but humanity’s doomed and to pretend otherwise is only to prolong the inevitable. To prove his case that life is awful, he submits to Lee the evidence of… the corpse of his cat. It’s been dead for weeks. He then starts talking about  his family, how when the Cylons attacked he could’ve gone back to save them but instead he elected to save his own skin.

Romo is practically threatening to kill him and Lee just looks a mixture of exasperated and vaguely confused. The lack of seriousness with which he takes Romo’s rant is splendid. It’s definitely over-exaggeration on Romo’s part; he never would’ve shot Lee. And talking Romo down from his guilt trip (we need to have faith in ourselves and do what we can to help  humanity, because’s there’s still hope, etc. etc.) convinces him that he should be President, because bam, next scene he’s being sworn in.

I’d say Romo’s making up stories and laying the angst on thick to bring Lee around to his point of view, like he did with Baltar, but…

…the dude was hallucinating his dead cat.

Romo, you are a mystery wrapped in a riddle and I love you.

The episode ends with Adama having a quick chat with his son President Adama, wherein he explains that he’s going after Roslin because he “can’t live without her.” Then he goes off in a Raptor and the fleet jumps away, leaving him to find their MIA President all by his lonesome.

Stuff gets more interesting next episode, right?

*I’m not not an Adama/Roslin shipper. I like them both, and I find their relationship interesting, and I like the way BSG’s made one of its main relationships be between middle-aged folks, which you don’t see often. Yay variety! But I always have a hard time shipping things on shows where everything is awful and depressing all the time. The epitome of that is Game of Thrones. I want my OTPs to get a happy ending, and “happy ending” and “Battlestar Galactica” don’t seem to together. The one exception to my “don’t ship doom and gloom couples” tendency was Lee/Starbuck, until season three came along and made me hate everything associated with it.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

What… what just happened? Oh my God. What?!

The Hub

What was going on among the Cylons while Adama was freaking out over on the Galactica? Baltar was being a narcissistic tool (as always). Roslin stepped to the edge of the Cliff of Murder and looked down at the Gorge of Villainy. And Lucy Lawless came back!

Turns out the hybrid jumping the Basestar away and Athena shooting Six are connected—when the hybrid sensed that Six (this one’s name is Natalie, which we only find out after I have no reason to write about her anymore, thanks a lot, show) died she panicked and sent the ship off in search of the Resurrection hub. But the hybrid can only sense where the hub is after it’s already gotten there, meaning there’s a lot of bopping around for the Basestar to do.

Every time the ship makes another jump Roslin finds herself in this weird sort of dream space. It looks like the Galactica, only it’s empty. Filling the role of Roslin’s spirit guide is Elosha, the priest who died back in season two.

Elosha leads Roslin to sickbay, where she sees her future self (or a version thereof) about to die of cancer. Keeping vigil around her are Adama, Lee, and Starbuck. They’re the people she’s closest to, but all the same Elosha tells the real Roslin that she doesn’t love them, because “you don’t make room for people anymore.”

Who is this Elosha phantom and why has she stepped in to make Roslin realize how cold-hearted she’s become? Never mind. I don’t care. I’m just glad it’s happening. Your self-realization awaits, m’lady.

Back on the Basestar an Eight and Helo have an informal tactical meeting to figure out how they can take out the hub and rescue D’anna. Their fellow Cylons will detect the Vipers’ heat signatures, so they’ll have to be towed in by Raiders and only turned on at the last minute. While the battle’s going on Helo and Eight can slip onto the hub and unbox D’anna.

Nothing weird about this conversation so far. And then Eight explains that she got “curious” about Athena, Helo, and Hera, so she downloaded Athena’s memories into herself. She’s not Helo’s wife, but she remembers everything about their life together as if she were. “I know it must feel like a violation of trust,” Faux Athena says, “but I don’t want it to be strange, OK?”

Helo:

Um.

No.

It’s strange.

Helo goes to have a chat Roslin that has substantially less by way of second-hand embarrassment. Roslin orders that D’anna be brought straight to her when she’s found, which goes against their agreement with the Cylons. Helo’s uncomfortable with it, but Roslin emphasizes that her decision is borne of practicality: The identity of the Final Five is an issue of security, and she “won’t let the Cylons sit on on that discussion.”

Roslin… that sounds an awful lot like you’re planning to kill D’anna—for good, since the Resurrection hub will be gone—after she tells you who the Final Five are. Not only is that blatantly lying to the Cylons, it’s also essentially tricking them into killing themselves. And, as Helo points out later, it’s taking Earth and slapping a humans-only sign on it. If she follows through it’ll be awful Admiral Cain-y of her.

Helo’s D’anna-rescuing mission gets easier when Brother Cavil and Boomer download D’anna’s consciousness into a body themselves. Brother Cavil says he woke her up so she’d convince the rebellious Cylons to rejoin their brethren, but that doesn’t seem right to me. There’s no way D’anna’s going to do it, first of all. She has no reason to. Plus Brother Cavil is the one who boxed her, and even when he brings her into a new body he makes no secret of the fact that he still thinks even mentioning the Final Five is blasphemous. Plus Brother Cavil’s just plain tricker than this scene would suggest. And something about Boomer allying with him is off, too. Maybe she’s a double agent? Something’s weird here. I just don’t know what it is.

The human and Cylon pilots are preparing for the joint attack on the hub, and the humans look ready to mutiny at the thought of putting their lives in Cylon hands until Faux Athena gives a stirring speech about how her fellow Cylons are laying their lives on the line, and if both sides don’t work together they’re all going to die. The speech works, and the Viper pilots stop grumbling. And yet… back down, Faux Athena. I get that you feel like you’re the real Athena, and you have my sympathy, because there’s no way things are going to end well for you. But stop. This is embarrassing.

Meanwhile Baltar and Roslin are trying to get the hybrid to tell them what the opera house vision means, but they’re not getting much of anywhere. Batlar is convinced that he can get the hybrid to stop being cryptic, because it grew to ~like him~ when he was on the Basestar and they have a ~spiritual connection~ now.

Oh, Baltar.

Only you.

Luckily for both those bozos (and Baltar’s bozoness is very much rubbing off on Roslin in this scene) the hybrid coughs up some relevant information, albeit not the info they wanted: The D’anna is back in a body.

The ship jumps again and Roslin has another tête-à-tête with Elosha, who lectures her about how the leader of a people is responsible for its soul. Subtext: Stop being such a dictatorial jerk. But Roslin still sees her immortality as justified because other people—well, no, she’s pretty much only thinking of Baltar–have done so much worse. She sees Adama reading a passage from a book (their book, the Searider Falcon) to her cancer patient self. In it, the main character is left to survive on an empty island, and he tries to build a garden, but instead he leaves only a scar. “This island saved my life,” Adama reads, “and I had done it no service.”

The attack on the hub commences. While the pilots doing their thing and Helo and Faux Athena are charging around looking for D’anna, Baltar’s broing it out with a Centurion. Remember how last season he framed himself as some great egalitarian hero who would stand up to The Man and fight against the ruling elite? He’s doing the same thing here, or trying to, telling the Centurion that his toaster self is being crushed under the oppressive heel of the skinjobs and that the Cylon God doesn’t want any of his children to be slaves.

Oh, Baltar, you little skeez. I love you. To Baltar’s credit the Centurion does look intrigued (well, as intrigued as a robot without much of a face can look), but then the Basestar takes a hit and Baltar’s ministry is cut short by a sizable hole in his gut.

Helo and Faux Athena find D’anna, who killed Brother Cavil as soon as the attack started. And she did it with one hand, without even getting out of the bath Resurrection tank.

Oh, and during the space battle Pike—the pilot who almost mutinied against Starbuck in “The Road Less Traveled” gets shot and tries to jump back to the fleet, becoming the dead pilot the Galactica came across last episode.

D’anna’s rescued and the Resurrection hub is destroyed, though you can tell Helo for one is conflicted about that second part. But to the Faux Athena it’s all good. Now there’s no difference between humans and Cylons, she says, which means we can start trusting each other.

Yeeeeeeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

Things aren’t going so well for Baltar, who’s bleeding out and only has Roslin—who has no medical training and, possibly more importantly, hates him—there to help. At first she goes into combat medic mode, but when a morpha-addled Baltar starts talking about religion things take a dark turn. At first he’s all “I used to feel guilt, but now I don’t, because God made all of us perfect and I only did what He wanted me to do.” It’s enough to make Roslin look like she wants to punch him in his stomach wound, but this particular religious belief of his is presumably something she’s been made aware of before.

But then.

But then.

Baltar tells Roslin the thing he used to feel the most guilt for: Giving the defense mainframe access codes to the Cylons, unintentionally making their attack on Caprica possible. In the moment he realized the magnitude of what he’d done—enabling the genocide of the human race—God “saved” him. He’s just a “force of nature,” a tool used by God to give humanity a new beginning.

You got one thing right in that monologue, Baltar: You are a tool.

Roslin looks like she wants to kill him, but she doesn’t look like only that. She’s completely pole-axed. Baltar is her gold standard of awfulness, the person whose existence justifies her actions because no matter what she does there’s no way she could ever even begin to approach the magnitude of what he’s done. She suspected him for years of being the one who betrayed humanity to the Cylons, but she could never prove it, was never able to put him on the spot and make him confront his worst crime. And now, after all this time, he just comes out and says it. And the little bastard doesn’t even feel bad about it! Everything just… worked out for him.

…except now his life is in her hands. Her decision whether or not to kill him is ultimately more about her than it is about him. She’s always known he was responsible for the attack on Caprica, even if she didn’t have hard evidence. And him not feeling remorse… well, she knew about the hippie cult and his weirdo religious beliefs. They’re insulting, but they’re not new. What this all comes down to is whether Roslin has become the sort of person who will take a life.

At first it looks like the answer to that question is yes. She removes Baltar’s bandage, leaving him to bleed out. I was kind of digging it, to be honest. The justice-driven Secretary of Education from the miniseries transforming into an all-out villain by the end of the show would really be interesting.

But ultimately she backs off. It’s probably for the best. Elosha whisks her away to dreamland and tells her that it’s not up to her who lives and who dies, even—perhaps especially—if we’re talking a total scumbag like Baltar. Further, Roslin should “just love someone.” Then Roslin sees her cancer-ridden doppelgänger die, leaving a heartbroken Adama by her side.

Roslin comes to and immediately regrets what she’s done. Panicked, she rebandages Baltar’s wound and checks that he’s still alive, which he is. Having turned away from the Abyss of Villainy Roslin meets with D’anna, who refuses to give up the names of the Final Five because that knowledge is the only thing that makes her valuable enough to keep alive. Clever girl.

So Roslin’s firmly allied herself with the light side of the Force yet again. But Baltar knows she tried to kill him, and the Cylons (or at least Faux Athena) know that she betrayed them by taking D’anna for herself. Roslin might’ve gone White Hat too late to restore the human-Cylon trust that her Black Hat self torpedoed.

It’s worrying, but all the same we get a happy ending. A jump of the Cylon Basestar coincidentally (or not) lands Roslin & co. within spitting distance of Adama in his Raptor. Onboard the Basestar the pair of them have a touching reunion, and Roslin finally tells a teary-eyed Adama she loves him. His response? “About time.”

Revelations

Revelations, the episode says. It ain’t kidding.

The episode starts before the Basestar gets back to the Galactica, so everyone assumes Roslin and probably Adama are dead. Lee, being sad in his dad’s office, pages through the Book of Pythia and casually mentions the Temple of Aurora that’s supposed to be on Earth. Hmm, it’s almost like it might be relevant in the future. Maybe we’ll finally find out what’s up with that Aurora statue Starbuck got from the oracle?

Starbuck, in an attempt to reassure her friend, shares with him a bit of wisdom that Leoben told her: We’re born to replace our parents, so for kids to reach their full potential their parents have to die.

Kara Thrace: The world’s worst grief counselor.

Back on the Basestar D’anna’s been unboxed for all of a few hours and she’s already running things. Her decision is that she and her fellow Cylons will take the humans on the Basestar captive until the four Cylons in the human fleet are turned over. Leoben tries to convince D’anna that cooperation with the humans is the best course of action, but D’anna’s having none of it.

Adama gets the unhappy job of going back to the Galactica and coordinating the hand-off; Roslin tells him that they can’t let the Cylons get the Final Four and scoot off to Earth by themselves, so if things get bad he has to blow the Basestar to smithereens, hostages included. Reluctantly, he agrees.

Nooooo. She just professed her love! Their relationship just started going well!

When the Basestar jumps back to the human fleet everyone’s all happy (except Gaeta, who’s missing one leg and doesn’t look like he’s doing well at all, poor guy)… until Adama and D’anna roll up in a Raptor and tell everyone about the hostage situation. “You don’t have to do anything but stay out of the way and let the Four come to us” says D’anna to the assembled crowd, which just so happens to include Tory, Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders. “They have nothing to fear. We only want to love and protect them.” Lee and Adama agree not to stop any Cylon who wishes to make their way to the Basestar, but it’s not like they have much of a choice: If the Cylons don’t make themselves known then Roslin and dozens of others, including a good chunk of the fleet’s military power, are going to be killed.

Mere seconds after D’anna’s grand pronouncement Tory asks if she can go to the Basestar to bring Roslin her medicine.

Subtle, Tory.

Tigh’s immediate response: “No!”

Subtle, Tigh.

D’anna’s also been leveling some heavy-duty ~significant glances~ at her four hidden buds. How did you guys ever manage to spearhead evil conspiracies when you’re all but cackling and moustache twirling all the time?

There’s no indication that Adama and Lee figure out right away that Tory’s one of the Final Five, but they had to have pieced it together. The Final Five aren’t going to be some random civilians. The Cylons’ track record is placing their secret agents in places where they’re able to do some serious harm. The Final Five are their heavy hitters, so they’re going to be where the action is. Like, say, at the President’s right hand.

In Adama’s office Starbuck proposes that they cook up a plan to get the hostages back by force. Adama gives her the go-ahead but tells her that if it doesn’t work Roslin wants them to blow up the Basestar. Lee, as Mr. President, has the ultimate say, and he agrees to follow Roslin’s suggestion.

Tigh feels. Adama’s not only his best friend—he’s his only friend, the person who defends him and sees his value when everyone else dismisses him as an alcoholic drunkard. He saw what it did to Adama when Roslin was kidnapped. If she dies it’ll destroy him. And she will die if he and his fellow Cylons don’t step forward. But doing that would be risking not only his life, but something that in Tigh’s eyes (well, eye) is far more important: Adama’s trust and friendship.

Why did I ever start liking Tigh? It has brought me nothing but pain!

Over on the Galactica Baltar and Roslin are having a Moment that, surprisingly, doesn’t involve them slap fighting. Instead Baltar thanks Roslin for not murdering him, acknowledging that it can’t have been an easy decision for her to make, but all the same he appreciates not being dead.

Did… did Baltar just behave like a mature adult?

I’m not entirely convinced he won’t backslide and devote an entire episode of his pirate radio show to that time Roslin almost killed him, but hey, a few seconds of not being a weaselly little jerk is still progress.

And anyway, a minute later he’s back to his old self. A Six and Tory march in to let Roslin know, boom, your assistant was one of the Final Five the whole time! Roslin’s gobsmacked, and she couldn’t blow up at Tory even if she wanted to, because she’s a hostage and there’s still the slim chance of peace between the Cylons and the humans that’d probably disappear if she went for the throat of one of their precious Final Five.

The first thing Baltar says upon finding out is “I knew it! [Internal dialogue: Ohcrapohcrap not a good thing to say, Roslin already hates my guts]… I mean I knew on a subconscious level that something was wrong. See? Still a genius. Not a traitor.”

Roslin goes into diplomacy mode and tries to get Tory to talk her fellow Cylons into releasing the hostages. But Tory’s done taking Roslin’s orders, thank you very much. Mic drop!

With one of the Final Five back in their collective robot bosom, the Cylons have gotten a bit antsy and decide to execute one hostage every 15 minutes until other three are returned to them.

On the Galactica those three hear some funky static that leads them to the Viper Starbuck came back from Earth in. There’s clearly something significant about the ship, and Tigh respectfully recommends (OK, OK, orders) that Starbuck be summoned to figure out what it is. Then he storms out…

… to go tell Adama he’s a Cylon.

It’s the only thing he can really do, and kudos to him for doing it. But it still breaks my heart.

At first Adama refuses to believe what Tigh’s saying, insisting that the Cylons must’ve implanted a chip in his head when he was imprisoned on New Caprica. Even now, when Tigh’s straight up telling him he’s a Cylon, his response is “Oh no, my bro! What did they do to you?!” He just doesn’t understand how someone who’s been through so much at the hands of the Cylons could possibly be one of them. (Tigh: “Tell me about it.”) Tigh explains that he only found out recently and that D’anna will release the hostages if Adama threatens to airlock him.

He’s willing to sacrifice himself. Without question.

I can’t handle this.

As Tigh gets marched to the airlock by his friendly local marines, Adama has a Category 5 freakout in his office. Screaming. Throwing things. Drinking. Punching his mirror. Sobbing. His friend’s gonna die. And he’ll be the one who lets it happen. But his friend was a Cylon. But oh, all the awful things his Cylon friend has been through. And his friend’s gonna die. I feel like I’m gonna die.

Lee tries to comfort his dad and ultimately does the best thing he could possibly do: Offer to take care of the Tigh situation (read: Dealing with the Cylons, possibly airlocking him) so Pops doesn’t have to.

Over in airlockville Lee tells D’anna that if she doesn’t release the hostages in ten minutes Tigh’s gonna go on a spacewalk without a suit. His bargaining position would be a heck of a lot better if he had the other Cylons too, so Tigh gives up Tyrol and Anders’ names. The two of them are at the Viper with Starbuck when the marines march up and take them away. Starbuck doesn’t say anything when she founds out Anders is a Cylon; she’s just stunned. As Anders is dragged away she yells to Starbuck that she has to figure out what about the ship has changed.

Starbuck, to her eternal credit, gets right on that. She just found out her husband’s a Cylon, but a chance to find Earth has just popped up, and a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta go. She figures it out pretty quickly and legs it to the airlock…

…where Lee’s moments away from jettisoning Tigh. D’anna’s convinced that he’s bluffing, so she’s about to execute all the hostages and nuke the human fleet for good measure. Baltar steps up and offers to try and talk her out of it, since they had a Cylon religion-based rapport once. He argues that Lee isn’t bluffing and that he’ll kill Tigh, Anders, and Tyrol—and therefore their shot at finding Earth—without hesitation. When that doesn’t work he reminds her that every single time there’s been a brute force stand-off between humans and Cylons neither side has gotten what they wanted. Maybe God brought you back to end things peacefully, he suggests.

Which is some pretty clever thinking. And Baltar’s a pretty clever dude with a history of being able to pull something out of his ass whenever the pressure’s on, like it is now. But his argument here seems… genuine. Like he really is, for once, on Roslin’s side with zero reservations. And really, what’s the need for sneakiness anymore? All his secrets are out (…right?). Way to step up, dude.

We never find out whether his argument worked, because Starbuck stops Lee from airlocking Tigh in the nick of time.

Turns out the Viper detected an emergency colonial beacon that can only have come from Earth. Lee’s skeptical, but Starbuck points out all the crazy random happenstances that led to them finding the signal: Her going to Earth and coming back. Finding Leoben. Leoben introducing her to the hybrid, who told her about the Final Five, three of whom led them to this signal that could get them to Earth. Whatever it is orchestrating things, Starbuck says, it clearly wants humans and Cylons to find Earth together.

So, after everything, the two species get together to arrange an alliance. The hostages get returned. Roslin is President again. Nobody’s going to shoot anybody else. The Final Four have amnesty and can stay with the fleet if they so choose. (Tyrol, Tigh, and Anders are later shown on the Galactica, so it looks like they didn’t pull a Tory.) Humans and Cylons are going to Earth together.

And they do.

Go there.

To Earth.

But… but it’s only episode ten! Out of 21 episodes this season! They can’t find Earth already, can they?

With just under two minutes left in the episode, after what is perhaps Adama’s most inspiring speech yet, the fleet lands on our very own home planet.

And it looks dead. There are no people in sight. And an abandoned city looms in the background.

Wait, what? Where’s the 13th colony? Oh of frakking course. They finally get what they’ve been searching for all this time, and the wonderful blue and green planet they’ve given up so much to reach is actually a blighted post-nuclear landscape. Why did I ever imagine it would be otherwise?

But even if the rest of humanity is gone, our heroes still got to Earth. That’s it. They should be done, barring some odds and ends like establishing a lasting piece with the Cylons, finding out what happened to the thirteenth colony, and answering left over mysterious questions. They’re all important things, but not meaty enough to hinge an entire half of a season on. Not gonna lie, I’m a little taken aback right now. But, on the plus side, if there’s one thing I’ve come to count on BSG for it’s having good season arcs. And the Big Papa/Mama Cylon is still out there somewhere, as are (presumably) a whole bunch of the bad Cylons.

Wow me, Battlestar Galactica. Do it.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

Everything hurts except being a Tigh fan. I feel like I’m in the bizarro world.

Sometimes a Great Notion

Ellen! Ellen! Ellen is the final Cylon!

Ahem.

Pulling myself together…

…and go:

Last week we found out that Earth, that golden solution to everybody’s problems, is actually (to quote Robin Hood: Men in Tights) D-E-D DEAD. This week, as our heroes do some investigating on the planet’s surface (and man, it’s weird to see them on land again), we find out more: The plant was nuked about 2,000 years ago. Everyone’s dead. Due to radiation, the planet is uninhabitable.

Oh, and the thirteenth colony was Cylons.

But… but the humans created Cylons. How could they have created Cylons if the whole lot of them—not just Centurions, but the relatively recent skinjobs, too—existed thousands of years ago when the Book of Pythia was written? What’s going on?

Adding to the WTFery is what happens when Starbuck and Leoben go hunting for the colonial transponder that sent the signal her Viper picked up. Turns out it comes from Starbuck’s original Viper, the one she was in when she Earth after that Eye of Jupiter weirdness.

Leoben tries to get Starbuck to back off, saying he has a feeling she won’t like what she finds. But backing off just isn’t Starbuck’s style. Eventually they come across the Viper’s cockpit, with the remains of the pilot still in it. The corpse is awfully rotted, but it does have blonde hair and, well, it’s Starbuck’s ship. It’s also wearing her dogtags. Survey says: It’s Starbuck, and Starbuck’s a Cylon.

At least that’s what she thinks. But we find out at the end of this episode that the final Cylon is someone else (Ellennnnnnn!!!!), plus there’s so much about Starbuck’s trip to Earth that just can’t be explained by “Welp, I’m a Cylon!” When she saw it it was blue and green and teeming with life, not desolate and gray. And there has to be someone else in the mix who switched her ship out, right?

Starbuck might be something, but it ain’t a Cylon. This show has a habit of teasing us with plot twists before they actually happen in such a way that it makes them seem like they’re not true. To wit: Tyrol and Ellen both had episodes about how they might be Cylons. The heavy hinting made it seem, to me anyway, that it would be far too obvious for it to be true. Then, of course, it was. A few episodes back Starbuck speculated that the Cylons took something from her body when she was in their creepy hospital and somehow grew a copy of her. Maybe something like that actually did happen.

Anyway, when Leoben sees the body he goes all

and he full on nopes out of there, Grumpy Cat style, when Starbuck tells him about the hybrid saying she would be humanity’s harbinger of death.

I thought you had all the answers, Leoben, you frakking jackass! And now you, who said you were all ~in touch with the stream of the universe~ or whatever, was completely wrong about Starbuck and Earth. Get outta here, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

(Side note: Starbuck and Leoben have gotten awful chummy considering that time Leoben kidnapped Starbuck and kept her locked up for several months. Starbuck, I know you needed him for his ~spiritual knowledge~, but now you don’t, because that knowledge was all BS. He’s still the same dude who imprisoned you. Now is the time to break away.)

Roslin, meanwhile, is inconsolable. And no wonder: Resettling humanity on Earth wasn’t just a quest for her. It was a religious imperative. And now, through no fault of her own, it all goes up in smoke. As does the Book of Pythia, which Roslin burns when she gets up to the Galactica. She also refuses to take her cancer treatments or talk to the Quorum, because nothing matters and everything sucks. She goes super maudlin and insists that Adama never should have listened to her about finding Earth, because all the search has brought is death. That isn’t exactly accurate: Trying to find Earth hasn’t killed people so much as being hunted down by evil robots has. And when Earth was introduced it was as this pie and the sky dream that Adama didn’t even believe in; he just lied about it to boost morale. Basically, without Earth to spur them on everyone probably would’ve died a long time ago.

Roslin, I feel you. You have every reason to be angsty. Just… snap out of it soon. We’ve had enough of that from you so far this season.

Also in a bad place mentally: Dee, who’s brought back for one episode just so she can kill herself and provide Lee and Adama with manpain.

Dee was completely wrecked by the discovery that Earth ain’t nothin’ but some nuked rubble. After getting back to the Galactica she seems to be happy: She babysits Athena, gives Lee an inspirational pep talk, and goes on a date with him that ends with some smooching. She even tells him it’s the best time she’s had in a long while. Then she goes back to her quarters, has a friendly moment with Gaeta, and shoots herself in the head. A devastated Lee can’t understand why she killed herself when she seemed to be so happy, and Adama just gets drunk and angry. Dee is his Billy.

Oh come on. In season one Dee had her own thing going on—sure, she was dating Billy, but she wasn’t defined as being his girlfriend. If anything both her and Billy, though their relationship, served as a metaphor for the relationship between the military and civilian portions of the population. And maybe it was a little boring and cutesy, but whatever.

But ever since season two Dee’s been Lee’s Love Interest. When their marriage was over, she pretty much disappeared. Compare that with Anders. All through season three he was Starbuck’s Love Interest, and though there’s been some lip service paid to the idea that they’re still married, it seems like the show’s pretty much abandoned that particular romantic relationship. But li’l Anders grew up to be a Cylon and get a plot of his own. Not so for Dee, who through all of season four up to this point has had the occasional line of expositionary dialogue. Until it’s time for her to die.

That said, I’m satisfied with the way she went out. Lee might not see what went on, but we, with the benefit of distance, do: She was broken by the discovery of Earth, and she wanted to have one last good evening before she died. She wanted to go out happy. And we know that Dee’s religious, and as such it makes sense that the great prophecy being a lie would hit her harder than it would, say, Lee or Adama. I just wish her death didn’t have such a eau de fridging.

Don’t mind me, I’m just being grumpy.

Back on Earth (it’s so weird to type that) Starbuck builds a pyre and burns her body… the body that was in the Viper crash… the body that Starbuck assumes is hers. Starbuck, do not keep this a secret, for the love of God. What good has keeping secrets ever done anyone on this show? Lots of people already think you’re a Cylon. If you just go up to Adama and say “Yo, I found this body, mind if I get Doc Cottle to do a DNA test on it?” I’m guessing you’ll spare yourself some pain in the long run.

I get why she doesn’t do that. There’s more to the decision than plain ol’ logic. But I hate how this show gives me so many feels by having their characters make stupid decisions that you know are going to come back and bite them in the ass. *coughGaetacough*

She does try to tell Lee, because “Hey, I think I’m a Cylon” is a heavy burden to bear by oneself. But Dee’s suicide puts the breaks on that particular emotional unburdening.

Dee’s death messes Adama up big-time, so he grabs a gun and goes to see Tigh. Tigh’s been wanting to have a chat with him, but Adama brushed him off because “emotionally available” isn’t exactly in his repertoire for people who aren’t Roslin or, occasionally, Lee. But a nice, friendly talk isn’t on Adama’s mind. Nope. He wants to goad Tigh into killing him.

He pulls out the big guns, too. “You’re a frakking machine.” “Were you programmed to be my friend?” “Ellen must’ve frakked all those guys because she knew, on some level, what you were. She wanted a real man. Oh, BTW, she came onto me once.”

At first Tigh’s just resigned—his friend is drunk and hurting, and Tigh knows how that goes. But bringing his wife into it causes Tigh to snap, as Adama knew it would. When Tigh points a gun at him Adama orders him to shoot, or else he’ll kill himself. Tigh, realizing the purpose of Adama’s visit, refuses to play along and even tries to get his friend to stop drinking. Adama then goes into one of his metaphor modes, talking about foxes and hounds, but basically what it boils down to is that he’s tempted to give up. Tigh tells him that neither of them can, because they’re leaders and people are depressed enough already.

The tables, how they have turned. Adama’s in a dark place, and Tigh’s there for him. There should be a kid’s book about these two: My Best Friend the Cylon.

Adama, with a renewed sense of purpose, announces to the fleet that they and the Cylons are going to go off in search of a new home. Not being able to stay on Earth is a bummer, he says (not that he’d ever use the word “bummer”), but the thirteen tribes of Kobol found home when they went off on a similar mission, and we will too.

Now it is time

to

talk

about

the

Cylons

and

Ellen.

Tyrol, shooting the breeze down on Earth, flashes back to the pre-nuke planet. He sees himself, in civvie clothes, doing some fruit shopping at a market right before the bombs hit. Anders has a similar flashback of him playing “All Along the Watchtower.” And Tory remembers herself living on Earth too, but we don’t find out more details, because as far as the writers are concerned she’s the red-headed stepchild of the Final Five family.

The Final Five are originally from Earth. They don’t know how they survived the destruction of the planet, how they came to live on Caprica, or why they forgot their former lives and came to believe themselves to be human.

D’anna tells Tigh that she’s staying on Earth to die among “the bones of my ancestors,” which saddens me because no more Lucy Lawless. But then I get happy again, because Tigh flashback. He was in the rubble of a building before the nukes hit, trying to get some lady out. She says not to worry, that everything’s in place and they’ll be reborn again together.

And yep. It’s Ellen. Tigh realizes that she’s the last Cylon.

It feels good to be a fan of the Tighs!

More Ellen!

And she’ll be a bad guy, yessssss lady villains!

And I’m sure there’s nothing but angst and pain in my future, because Tigh’s going to have to choose between Adama and Ellen or something.

But I don’t care! Let me have this for now!

The Tiiiiiiiiiighs!

The Face of the Enemy

This isn’t a screencap like I usually use. But it’s accurate. And I suspect that it will continue to be so. Buckle up, buttercups. It’s time for the Gaetasode.

It’s six days after the discovery of Earth, and the fleet has set out in search of a less nuked planet on which to settle. Gaeta’s been overworking himself, so Tigh orders him to get his butt over to the Zephyr and take a week of R&R. And he does have to order him. Last episode we saw Gaeta’s distaste at needing other people to help him post-amputation, and he still bristles at any implication that he can’t do his job correctly.

But he has no other choice, so it’s off to a shuttle he goes. On the way he’s stopped by Hoshi, who’s *ahem* stolen borrowed acquired some morpha for him to use during his vacation. Turns out Gaeta and Hoshi are an item. Yay for multiple canon LGBT characters! Also yay for someone else liking Gaeta. Dee seemed to be his only friend, and now she’s dead.

Joining Gaeta on the shuttle are a mechanic named Brooks, two pilots, and two Eights, who for simplicity’s sake I will refer to as Eight and Goth Eight (because she’s wearing a black jacket, let me have my fun). What’s supposed to be a 15-minute trip gets decidedly more complicated when Cylons show up and the whole fleet has to make an emergency jump. Only there’s a problem with the Raptor’s coordinates, and Gaeta and the rest end up out in the middle of nowhere with no idea where everyone else is.

You know what they need now? They need math. And Gaeta’s on the job, swooping into work mode to do non-linear calculations like a boss while everyone else (well, the humans) freaks out and yells at each other. Eight asks Gaeta if he recognizes her, and I would guess no, because there are a lot of you, Eight. But judging by his face, he does.

Back on the Galactica we find out that the Cylons didn’t actually show up. It was a false alarm, so the fleet just went back to its original location. But it’s been two days and Gaeta’s not back yet, so Hoshi knows something’s wrong. He asks Tigh for permission to take a Raptor and a pilot and go after him, and at first Tigh’s having none of it. What are they gonna do, jump around randomly and hope they’ll run into a single ship somewhere in the vastness of space? But Hoshi appeals to Tigh’s humanity (kinda), saying that he and Gaeta are nudge nudge wink wink, and he knows there’s some force in the universe that will lead them together.

And it works. Tigh may be a grumpy drunk, but he’s not just that. He retains some of his crusty old man exterior by saying “Well you have to run it by the old man,” but there wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation. Gaeta’s boyfriend asks if he can go after him, and he says yes.

Back on the Raptor Gaeta & co. have only 20 hours of air left before they all die. And that’s if they don’t take in as much oxygen as usual, meaning that they’ll start getting way mentally discombobulated. Brooks decides to take a look at the innards of the ship and see if he can pull a MacGyver. Goth Eight offers to help, but when she does she’s electrocuted to death because someone stripped off the insulating cover of Brooks’ pliers. Everyone gets all shifty-eyed when Gaeta tries to get to the bottom of it; no one’s particularly sad that a skinjob is dead, and with one less person on the ship all the survivors have longer to live. Eventually Gaeta says that it must’ve been an accident. At Eight’s suggestion, they jettison the body into space.

Through a series of flashbacks we find out where Gaeta knows Eight from: She was his contact on New Caprica. He’d give her a list of imprisoned humans, and she’d get them out of detention. More than that, they were bros. More than that, they were lovers. And now she’s his Cylon ex and they’re trapped on a ship together with limited air while Gaeta’s current significant other is out looking for him.

Back in the present day Eight wakes Gaeta up to tell him that by plugging herself into the Raptor’s computer she can get them home. But he has to stand guard while she does it, because if the others see they’ll think she’s a dirty Cylon saboteur. Before Eight can cut her hand and jam the appropriate cable in (eugh, never wanted to see that again) Gaeta notices that Brooks is dead, having been injected with two of Gaeta’s morpha syringes.

There’s no way to know whether he killed himself or someone else did it, but the pilots are convinced that Eight’s responsible. She gets tied up, but as soon as everyone else falls asleep she uses the knife she’s been hiding to cut herself loose. Gaeta catches her in the act, and the two of them plug her into the Raptor. It’s a tense situation all-around; plugging a cable into one’s arm can’t be fun, and between the oxygen deprivation and the ew factor and the pain in his leg Gaeta looks like he’s about to pass out. Eight says that she’s trying to “project” to a good memory (like Cylons do), aka one of them getting funky on New Caprica. She kisses him and he pulls back, telling her that she’s with someone else now. And I’m all ready to slap Gaeta on the back for being a stand-up guy until they go and kiss anyway.

Well now I just want to slap him. Gaeta, I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and blame this on you being mentally loopy. But you are not making it easy for me to like you right now.

After only a bit of mackage Eight finds the fleet’s position. Everything is wonderful! They can go home! Except there are 13 minutes left so I’m guessing that’s not gonna happen.

Meanwhile Hoshi and Racetrack are having no luck in their (let’s be real) completely hopeless search for Hoshi’s BF. She tells him she’s happy he and Gaeta got together, because people had been betting on it forever. Oh, those frakking cute bastards. Hoshi waxes poetic about Gaeta’s “moral code,” and Racetrack puts her foot in her mouth when she remarks that having a moral code is a surefire way to get oneself killed. Later on, after more searching, Racetrack is the one to convince Hoshi to give Gaeta up for dead. After a certain amount of time it doesn’t make sense to look anymore, she says. And he’d know that. He’d understand what you have to do.

Practical and a little bit (unintentionally) callous. Oh, Racetrack.

Gaeta’s Raptor makes the jump to the coordinates Eight found, but the rest of the fleet isn’t there. There’s not enough power for another jump, but as a last ditch effort they can send out a pulse and hope that if anyone’s in range they’ll pick it up and come rescue them. Except there’ll only be two of them to rescue, since the pilots’ throats have been cut. It’s gotta be Eight, since she’s the only one left.

And it’s time for a villain monologue!

Eight is the one who killed the pilots, Brooks, and (accidentally) Goth Eight, because she and Gaeta needed the air. She appears to be unhealthily fixated on him, which appears to be a trend with her model (looking at you, Faux Athena). As if that’s not bad enough, it turns out that back on New Caprica she would take the names on the lists Gaeta gave her and kill them. She wasn’t working for the Resistance. He was working for the Cylons, albeit without knowing.

And Gaeta just cannot handle it. He tries everything he can to convince himself that what she’s saying isn’t true, but in the end he has to accept that it is. He already hated himself for siding with Baltar, but what got him through the aftermath is that he figured out how wrong his choice was and started working for the good guys before it was too late. And now he finds out that even when he was doing the right thing he was still frakking up and getting people killed. It’s the same old refrain: He let his emotions (in this case, hope that he was doing something to save people) get in the way of rational decision-making. It was obvious that Eight was seducing him to get names, and she argues that even he must’ve known on some subconscious level what was going on. But since he didn’t want to believe it, he shut it out.

That’s what Baltar was talking about in the legendary (well, legendary to me) pen scene. Baltar knew that Gaeta was being played, and he taunted him with the knowledge of what “your Eight” did.

And Gaeta’s default mode is apparently “stab things,” because just as he stabbed Baltar in the neck so now he stabs Eight to death. Everyone on the ship is dead but him. There’s blood on his hands both literally and figuratively. With only 21 minutes of air left he’s almost certainly going to die. And he’s not in a good place mentally or emotionally, to put it lightly. And oh look, there are two morpha left: Enough for a lethal dose.

Don’t do it, Gaeta! Don’t do it!

And he doesn’t, which is a damn good thing, because mere seconds later Hoshi’s Raptor shows up.

So it’s not all suckitude for Gaeta; he’s alive and he has Hoshi, who holds his hands as he’s wheeled to the Galactica’s infirmary. And Hoshi has to think everything’s great. He boyfriend had only 21 minutes left to live, but he found him! Yay!

Except things are shaping up to be decidedly not yay in the future. The episode ends with Gaeta, through with self-imposed ignorance, confronting Tigh about how he’s a Cylon. Tigh just brushes it off and says he can bring it up with Adama at the next meeting, but something tells me Geata’s not going to go through normal channels for this one. Adama knows Tigh’s a Cylon, and he’s fine with it (or fine-ish), but Gaeta doesn’t know that. He tells Hoshi that he’s planning something, but he won’t say what it is. “I’ll protect you,” he says, “but if this doesn’t work out and I’m wrong… you have a bright future, Louis.”

That… that sounds bad. He’s probably planning something that, he hopes, will torpedo the human-Cylon alliance. Or if it’s not that, it’s surely something equally misguided.

Gaeta!

Stop doing stupid sh*t, oh my Gods.

I want to hug you.

But I also want to throw a bus at your head.

I want to drown you…

… in puppies.

This will not end well you stupid frakker, it never does, I hate you I love you what are you doing

JUST

STOP.

(FYI, there will be no Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recap next week, as I’m spending some time with family for the holidays and therefore want to avoid the utter pain that BSG brings me. Have a happy Thanksgiving, American readers!)

In an effort to avoid spoilers, comments on this post have been locked. However, Jill and Susana will be reading comments over at our Facebook page, so if there’s anything you’d like to say in response to this post head on over that way. Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here, and next week’s recap is here. Have a (non-spoilery, for the love of God) comment? Hit me up on Twitter.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

I. HATE. EVERYTHING.

*sobs onto keyboard*

A Disquiet Follows My Soul

The identity of the Final Cylon has been discovered. Humans and Cylons have begun a new quest to find a habitable home planet. There’s only half a season to go. I’m ready for things to kick into high gear, and instead this episode gives us a show going into statis. Sigh.

We start with Adama being full of ennui, and it’s such an innocuous scene—him waking up late, getting ready for work—that I was half convinced that when he coughed it meant he’d die of a sudden illness by the end of the episode. But no.

Over in sickbay Six and Tigh are doing the happy parent routine as Six gets her first sonogram. Sure, Tigh’s still grumpy, because it’s Tigh and he’s contractually obligated to be, but all the same he’s remarkably sappy by his standards. He’s holding Six’s hand. There’s some stuff about how this is the first time two Cylons have managed to reproduce, and there’s a nurse who’s constantly DNW-face-ing at Cylons being happy over their ~miracle baby~ and the ~future of their species~. But I can’t even focus on that, because Tigh/Six is still a thing. I don’t understand, and I don’t approve.

Gaeta, in the sick bay for some prosthetic leg maintenance, is ten thousand percent bitter about the easy acceptance the Cylons have gotten. We find in this episode that a lot of people have misgivings about the rumored permanent alliance between Cylons and humans. Adama holds a press conference where he proceeds to not answer any of the press’ questions, because “This is all military business, which means it’s none of yours. Adama OUT!” Dude. That’s not going to fly. The tension is exacerbated by the fact that Roslin’s gone into seclusion since Earth went bust. Zarek takes advantage of people’s freak-outage about the President’s disappearing act to swoop into the void and stir up anti-Cylon sentiments.

I don’t know what Adama expected to happen when he won’t even try to work with the civvies in Roslin’s absence. Lee does his best to be the voice of moderation at Quorum meetings, but there’s only so much one junior representative can do. Adama refuses to even throw the rest of the fleet a bone and let them in on the identity of the dreaded Final Cylon. “You don’t need to worry about her anymore,” he says. “She’s dead.” But as far as your everyday civvie is concerned this is the monster under the bed, the boogeyman responsible for the destruction of humanity. Keeping absolutely everything to yourself is not an option.

The situation is kind of Inception-y, by which I mean the protagonists could easily be the bad guys of someone else’s story. Dom Cobb & co. are thieves. Adama and Roslin are… well, they’re pretty much dictators. Only we’re not supposed to believe they really are, because the only in-show character saying it is Zarek, and he’s a villain. I kind of wish the show would just own up and admit it.

The Cylon and human leaders are cooking up a plan to upgrade the fleet’s FTL drives with Cylon technology. It’ll triple the fleet’s jump capacity, meaning they’ll be able to search for far more potentially habitable planets before they run out of food and fuel. The Quorum, still suspicious of the Cylons, don’t want to allow Cylon tech on civvie ships. Lee suggests that to bring them around they promise that only humans will do the installations, which Tyrol points out is impossible. Gaeta, who’s been stinkfacing through this entire conversation, really lets a good one fly:

Mr. Distrustful of Cylons asks what the catch is, and it turns out there is one: The Cylons want full citizenship. That way if Cavil and his goons come along Adama will be bound by honor to protect them just like he would his fellow humans. Everyone’s immediately like “Uh, no,” but Adama appears to be considering it. Only he has to ask Roslin first.

Except Roslin’s not too keen on getting back into politics. We see her throwing away her pills, accepting that she’s going to die soon and deciding that she’d rather spend what time she has left doing things like yoga and jogging instead of going in for cancer treatments. According to Doc Cottle her subsequent good mood is temporary euphoria brought about by stopping treatment, but Roslin doesn’t care. When Adama asks her about the citizenship question she stalls him. I was the prophecized leader before, but that didn’t work out. Is there another role I have to play for the rest of my life? Well… yeah. You’re still the President. I feel for her, and her desire to walk away is completely understandable, but at the same time… you have responsibilities. If you’re going to go AWOL, at least pass on your duties to other people first, else you end up leaving Zarek the keys to the human race.

Zarek gives a speech to the Quorum and convinces everyone but Lee to vote in favor of barring any Cylon from boarding a civilian ship without the approval of its residents. As a result a bunch of ships start ignoring the Galactica’s orders, and one of them, the all-important tylium ship, straight-up leaves. Adama, after ordering Zarek’s arrest, proceeds to thoroughly pwn the sleazy politician, saying he’ll release records of Zarek’s corruption if he doesn’t give up the ship’s coordinates. He’s totally bluffing, but evidently Zarek is a corrupt SOB because he completely buys that Adama has a ton of info on his evil deeds. He capitulates, and the Galactica gets the tylium ship t0 come back.

… except Zarek’s not done poking his head in, because he’s Zarek. Earlier in the episode we saw Gaeta approach Starbuck in the mess and be a complete jerk to her, giving her crap about being married to a Cylon and maybe being one herself. Starbuck spices up the dull episode, as she is wont to do, by firing right back, calling Gaeta a “cripple” and a “gimp” and giving him flak for thinking anyone should care about his leg. Jesus frakking Christ, you two.

Unbeknownst to Starbuck, but  knownst to us, she played right into Gaeta’s hands. The point of him confronting her way to get the attention of everyone else in the mess hall. After she storms out he proceeds to do some anti-Cylon preaching, presumably. At the end of the episode he officially joins forces with Zarek. Gaeta will be the one to perform some “small act of courage” intended start a revolution.

Gaeta, you bonehead. Do not hitch your wagon to Zarek’s star! You have Admiral Adama’s ear. He invites you to his super-important meetings! If you have concerns about the way the fleet is behaving, ask him about them. Or ask Lee! Or ask someone. Starting a violent revolution is not the way to go.

That said, this decision absolutely fits his character. I’ve written (at length, because I have feels) about how Gaeta lets emotion rule his decision-making. Even all the way back in the documentary episode we saw him all “I’m a cool dude with my unbuttoned jacket and my tat, eyyyyyyyy.” He wants to be a rebel. He wants to be a savior, a freedom fighter, something other than a secondary character in a show where he’s in direct opposition to the main characters. Damn this show’s consistent characterization.

Gaeta. My love. This will not end well for you.

The revolutionaries do have a point, by the way, even if they’re going about it the wrong way. It’s been, what, three years since the Cylons nuked the 12 colonies and attempted genocide against humanity? And they’ve been chasing them ever since. Cylons practically enslaved the fleet on New Caprica. The civilians have no reason to support putting the fate of humanity in the Cylons’ hands. Adama and Roslin have reasons. They know the situation with the rebels. They’ve been convinced that there are good Cylons. Wonderful. Now they need to convince everyone else (one speech from a Six doesn’t cut it). They’re supposed to be a representative government for Chrissakes! They don’t have the luxury of believing that people will—or should—accept all their policy decisions on face value, especially when what’s at stake is their lives and the lives of everyone they know. Roslin and Adama have earned the trust of humanity, but they still have to work to keep it. I don’t blame Roslin for her siesta, but she’s continually had a problem with not seeing herself as accountable to the people and the Quorum. And Adama’s not helping, what with holding press conferences where he won’t answer the questions and constantly engaging in dick measuring contests with Zarek. It’s a major failure of leadership, and I hope later episodes acknowledge that.

Tyrol has a plotline where he discovers Baby Nicky, who’s come down with acute renal failure and might lose a kidney, isn’t actually his kid. Turns out right before they got married Cally got horizontal with Hot Dog, who doesn’t even know he’s the father. Tyrol follows him to one of Baltar’s meetings and proceeds to wail on him. Tyrol, no. That’s like beating up the family puppy. Don’t do that. The two of them visit sickbay, and when Tyrol goes into fatherly advice mode I think maybe he’s stopped being such a jerk. But then:

Tyrol: Lesson one. If your kid’s in the hospital, never leave him alone. You have first shift.

Hot Dog: Sounds good. Wait, how long do I sit here?

Tyrol: Until I get back.

Tyrol: Which’ll be when I’m sober.

Tyrol:

Tyrol:

Tyrol: Frak you.

What was the point of all that? Seriously. Maybe to completely cut Tyrols’ ties from humanity by making the kid he thought he had with his wife not even his? But he was already pretty much there anyway. Popping in a random “You are NOT the father!” is just zzzzzzzz.

Speaking of zzzzzzz, I think Baltar is just as bored as I am. About halfway through the episode I was praying for his smarmy, narcissistic ass to make an appearance and mix things up. Then we got a scene where Baltar was giving a rousing sermon, but he was totally on autopilot (and maybe a bit drunk): “God made us all perfect, so everything we do is perfect. We didn’t do anything near bad enough to deserve our present fate, so maybe we should blame God, because what has he done for us lately? Yeah, you guys yell while I have a smoke.” Even Tyrol attacking Hot Dog doesn’t make him look like he’s not about ready to slip into a coma:

The episode ends with Roslin and and Adama doing a bit of (shirtless, woooo!) snuggling in bed. It’s cute that they’ve apparently turned into teenage hippies, but it’s not enough to make this episode any less dull. You can’t deliver a plot twist like the discovery of Earth and then sweve into “Meh, Whatever”ville. Bring back Ellen!

The Oath

Gaeta you bonehead, you are going to get yourself killed.

Ahem.

The revolution subplot is starting to work for me, actually.

The episode starts fairly innocuously—Adama and Tigh are in the former’s quarters chatting about how even more ships have started disobeying direct orders. Roslin casually comes out of Adama’s bedroom wearing a robe, and I’m not sure, but I think Adama is turning a smug “Yeeeeah, guess who just got some?” look to his best friend. That’s what I’m rolling with anyway. Tigh suggests that maybe he shouldn’t be the one dealing with this whole kerfluffle, what with all the robot racism in the fleet. After he leaves Adam and Roslin have a chat in which Roslin insists she’s done with politics (might want to get a replacement in line, then. Just sayin.’) but then proceeds to offer advice on which Quorum member Lee will be most able to sway to his side.

Sure you’re out of politics, Roslin. Sure.

Meanwhile the plot to take over the Galactica is underway. Gaeta breaks Zarek out of the brig and gets him to the hangar bay, where Racetrack fakes a dangerous spill to get all the non-conspirators to leave. Racetrack, you’re in on this too? I suspect that the conspiracy will fail, if not this episode or the next then eventually. And I don’t want anything bad to happen to Racetrack. I really like her.

Oh, what am I saying? This is Battlestar Galactica.

Laird, the ex-civvie/ex-Pegasus deck chief/current Galactica deck chief senses that something foul is going on and insists that he check with the CIC before Zarek—whom Gaeta says Adama is spiriting away to prevent an assassination attempt—be allowed to leave the ship. Gaeta tries to put him off the scent, but it takes Zarek beaning him with a wrench to get him from blowing the whole plot. Zarek gives a big speech about revolution and no hesitation and he won’t be the last (wait, did Laird die?), and then he and Racetrack beat it to the Colonial One.

The entire thing is witnessed by the main hippie cult woman with the sick kid. I keep forgetting her name.

Gaeta goes to the CIC, where he proceeds to convince everyone that what looks like a ship making an unauthorized departure is just a DRADIS glitch. Computers, amirite? And everyone, even Tigh, buys it with zero hesitation, because even after Gaeta’s newly realized robo-racist tendencies they still can’t imagine that he’d be betraying them.

The next step is Gaeta saying there’s been a fire on Deck C, which happens to be where an arms locker is. Adama, thinking the fleet’s comms are at risk, orders that the deck be evacuated.

Part of Gaeta and Zarek’s plan is to round up all the Cylons on the Galactica. The first to get grabbed and put in Caprica’s cell is Anders. The next down are Athena, Hera, and—just for good measure—Helo. Making things even worse, among the kidnappers is one of the Pegasus crewmembers who almost raped Athena back in season two. He’s still bitter about Helo and Tyrol killing the Pegasus’ interrogator, and he plans to take it out on her.

Back on Deck C Starbuck hears the evacuation order and immediately realizes that’s something up. She sneaks around a bit and sees a bunch of civvies arming themselves. Obviously something major’s going down, so she calls the CIC to tell Adama about it. Only Gaeta, who mans the phone, hangs up on her.

I know you enjoyed that, bro.

Lee’s trying to calm the Quorum down when Zarek marches in all “honey, I’m home!” He knows that when the mutiny starts going down he can get 11 of the 12 representatives on his side, but he won’t be able to convince Lee. Instead he has to get him out of the way.

An opportunity presents itself when Lee tries to call his dad to ask why Zarek was released. He’s summarily dismissed by Gaeta, who says “Yeah, yeah, fine, I’ll tell him you called.” Zarek preys on Lee’s daddy issues by insinuating that Adama’s a threat to democracy, which is why he’s shutting his son out and making excuses not to talk to him. Again.

Fine, says Lee. I’ll go the Galactica and talk to him! I’ll prove you wrong, see if I don’t!

Zarek:

It turns out that getting Lee out of the way by sending him to the ship where the mutiny is taking place isn’t the best idea. As soon as he lands a marine tries to arrest him, but Starbuck pops out of the woodwork and shoots the marine in the head. She even has a zinger: “Take it from someone who died once. It’s no fun.”

So now Lee and Starbuck—who’s happier than she has been in ages now that she has a mission to accomplish and a reason to commit violence—are sneaking around the ship with guns. By this point Gaeta’s cut the Galactica’s comms, and while Adama and Tigh haven’t figured out the extent of what’s going on they’ve started to realize that something‘s not right. Hoshi unintentionally sells out his boyfriend when he notes that the gas reading from Deck C is normal, which means there’s no fire there. Adama orders Private Jaffe to go and lay eyes on the situation. When he comes back things start to go down.

The jig well and truly up, Gaeta plays his hand and reveals THIS IS A MUTINY, FRAKKERRRRS! The mutinous Marines get a bit trigger happy and Jaffe ends up dying, which sends Adama from mere nail-spitting anger to apopleptic rage with a side of “Gaeta, I will tear your spine out through your mouth.” Gaeta says that he’s removing Adama from command and arresting him for treason, since he’s betrayed his oath to humanity by letting his affection for a Cylon (meaning Tigh) cloud his judgement.

Are you accusing someone else of letting their emotions get in the way of their decision-making, Gaeta?

Are you really?

Adama goes into Batman Voice Mode and tells all the conspirators that if they go through with the  mutiny they won’t be forgiven. Gaeta doesn’t back down; he orders that Adama and Tigh be taken to the brig and all the senior staff (including Hoshi! Feeeeels.) be locked in a holding cell.

Starbuck and Lee get to Adama’s quarters, where they find Roslin. They decide that Roslin has a shot at stopping Zarek from taking over if she can get a message to the fleet. Luckily, they know someone who has a pirate radio…

Tyrol is in charge over at Baltar’s hippie cult headquarters, making sure the place is barricaded and keeping everyone from panicking. Later Lee asks why he’s being so helpful, and he responds that Adama deserves a better fate than the one the mutineers will give him. There’s a secondary storage bay that they can use to get him off the ship, Tyrol explains. You just have to get him there.

It’s been decided that Baltar has to get off the Galactica too, since the mutineers are probably coming for him. Oh, of course you think the entire revolt is about you. He doesn’t seem that sad to be leaving his worshipful brethren; the main hippie lady tearfully gives him a statue, and after his awkward goodbyes he tells her “Um, no. You can keep it. Really. It’s fine.”

Do I smell the end of the hippie cult plotline? Do I smell Baltar actually getting to do things again?

Roslin busts in and demands that Baltar let her use his wireless, saying “There’s a chance we can avoid bloodshed if I address the fleet and assure them the Cylons mean no harm.”

Well it’s

ABOUT

DAMN

TIME.

They give each other a bit of flak about their respective religions, but in the end Roslin gets her broadcast. In the meantime Adama and Tigh manage to overpower two armed Marines, incapacitating one and taking the other hostage. Tigh leaps on one of them like a howler (growler?) monkey. It’s glorious.

It’s clear that not all of Gaeta’s mutineers are 100% comfortable with the plan now that it’s stared to go down—it’s less that they’ve found a new love of Cylons than they’re really uncomfortable with acting against Adama. Matters aren’t helped when Roslin’s speech goes out. It’s a good one, all about how allying with the Cylons was a difficult decision to make, but it’s the only option humanity has left.

Couldn’t have done that a week ago, huh? All right. Fine. Whatever.

Adams and Tigh run into Lee and Starbuck, and there’s a bit of dispute because Starbuck wants to shoot the hostage marine. ‘Buck, you know I love you, but right now is not the time to quibble over POW treatment. The end result is that they let the guy go, and the four of them make their way to the secondary storage bay.

Roslin and Baltar, already waiting there, exchange a bit of banter about Gaeta and how they’ve both bad luck when it comes to choosing Presidential aides. Baltar then calls the CIC and begs Gaeta to stand down. “I know you’re a good, honorable man,” he says, “Even your failings—like what happened with Eight on New Caprica—have been understandable. I forgive you for them. If you want redemption this isn’t the way to go about it.”

Lords of Kobol, that hurt! The call wasn’t some PR move on Baltar’s part, something to make him look good: The only other person in the room is Roslin, who already hates him, and he stepped away and spoke quietly so she wouldn’t hear him anyway. This is just Baltar trying to convince a former friend—someone who hates him, who stabbed him in the neck and lied in court in the hopes he’d get the death sentence—not to go down the dark path he’s set himself on. Baltar looks really upset when Gaeta hangs up on him. They were actually friends. Baltar still cares about Gaeta. I can’t handle this.

Gaeta notices that there’s a Raptor heading to the secondary storage bay, so he sends a group of Marines to cut the doors open and stop Roslin from leaving. Adama’s not going with her, because a Captain goes down with his ship and he won’t be able to live with himself if he leaves and all that. Plus he needs to stand guard and make sure Roslin’s Raptor gets away. After a makeout session that leaves Lee and Starbuck standing around awkwardly…

…the Raptor takes off with Roslin and Baltar onboard. Lee and Starbuck go do to whatever it is they’re going to do, leaving Adama and Tigh behind for a shootout with Gaeta’s Marines. It’s a suicide mission, and it might not even ensure Roslin’s safety, since the end of the episode shows Gaeta giving the order to fire on the fleeing Raptor.

I’m calling it: His underlings are going to refuse.

Marines throw a grenade into the secondary hangar bay, and if Tigh sacrificed himself by shielding Adama from the blow I will kill something.

Blood on the Scales

It is impossible to fully express my reaction to Gaeta’s death with a mere gif. I need a video:

As I predicted, not everyone is OK with Gaeta’s orders to shoot down President Roslin’s Raptor. Specifically, Hot Dog refuses to fire once Roslin gets through the comm jam and announces her identity. Hot Dog, my boy! Let me hug you. His fellow pilot Narcho has no such reservations. But Athena pulls some evasive maneuvers, and the Raptor lands safely on the Basestsar. There Roslin convinces the Cylons not to jump away by using the Final Four card: Adama’s still on the ship, so he could resolve the situation. Don’t give him the chance to do that and you’ll never see your precious fellow Cylons (minus Tory) again. She convinces them to move the Basestar into the middle of the fleet on the grounds that Gaeta doesn’t have the guts to shoot it when the civilian ships are right there.

Meanwhile Adama and Tigh are both alive, if a bit dinged up and captured by Gaeta’s Marines. Tigh’s been taken to the brig, where he and the other Cylons are fretting about what Gaeta plans to do to them. Adama gets marched to the CIC, where Gaeta tries to get him to convince Roslin to surrender. This is your ship now, you frakking child, he responds. You want Roslin to do something? You can call her up and ask her yourself.

Zarek brings his smarm onto the Galactica, and through a chat with Gaeta we find out that they plan to try Adama for treason. Zarek doesn’t want to do it, but Gaeta insists that Adama answers for his myriad (perceived) evil actions, like leaving the fleet behind on New Caprica and allying with the Cylons.

Gaeta, I admire your dedication to due process. I really do, though I’d admire it more if you hadn’t shown your disrespect for it earlier by lying at Baltar’s trial. But Adama’s paid. He lost his ship. And it’s transparently obvious what’s going on here. I’ve called Gaeta a vindictive tool before, and that’s showing itself here. His insistence that Adama stand trial springs at least partially from the (illegal) trial that Gaeta was subjected to. He’s been put through some truly awful stuff—the trial, his leg—but unlike others, he cannot let it go. Like Hoshi said in the Gaetasode: A moral center. A strong, stubborn, occasionally wrong moral center.

Of course I come to the realization of similar Gaeta is to my favorite Game of Thrones character Stannis Baratheon in the episode where he dies, and therefore we won’t get to see any more of him. This show can go airlock itself.

In Adama’s quarters, now Gaeta’s, Zarek reads the charges to the ousted Admira: Treason, desertion, etc. etc. Adama, in true Old Man form, refuses to attempt to do anything that resembles placating the people who now have his life in their hands. They wanna shoot him? Fine. Whatever. He won’t give their trial any authority by taking part in it. And it’s not like it’s a fair trial anyway, ’cause Zarek’s the judge.

Unconvinced of the efficacy of Adama’s “You can go frak yourselves” defense is Romo Lampkin, who’s been called in to be Adama’s lawyer. He asks for a few minutes alone with his client, during which time he tries to convince Adama to at least defend his innocence for posterity. But Adama refuses–Gaeta and Zarek won’t be successful in his mutiny, which means he won’t need to convince future generations of anything, so there. Romo tries another tack, explaining that he should cooperate in order to give the people working to free him more chance to do so. But the Marines standing guard don’t much like that, and the meeting ends.

Meanwhile Zarek attends a meeting of the Quorum, which he’s relocated to the Galactica against Gaeta’s express wishes. Zarek gives a big speech about how great he and Gaeta are, but no one buys it, because no one wants them for their leaders.

Stop trying to make it happen, Zarek.

It’s not going to happen.

After they express their loyalty to Adama and Roslin, Zarek has them killed. All of them. The entire Quorum. Shot dead. Holy Jesus.

Gaeta, predictably, is all What the frak did you do?! I never agreed to this! But Zarek tells him to put his big boy pants on, buttercup, because this is what the coup is all about. What did you think was going to happen? For our next trick, we’ll kill Adama.

Poor Gaeta. He didn’t realize what a snake Zarek is the same way he didn’t realize what a snake Baltar is (was?). And now he’s in way too deep. If he and Zarek lose, he’s going to executed (*sob*). Even if he turns on Zarek and gives Adama back his ship, it’s probably too late for redemption. But if he and Zarek win he’s effectively handed the government over to a power-hungry murderer.

This whole time Tyrol’s been crawling around in the guts of the Galactica. He spends like 85% of this episode in tunnels for reasons we don’t know until the end, when it’s deus ex Tyrol. Anyway, there’s a scene here where he’s found by Benny from Supernatural Kelly, who was arrested a few episodes back for trying to kill Romo. Kelly, being a Cylon hater, is firmly on Gaeta’s side… but he can’t seem to bring himself to shoot his old buddy. They have a bit of bro bonding, and Kelly lets him go.

Over on the Basestar Roslin is being flipping amazing. The Cylons decide that things are getting a little too hot for them and they’d rather leave the humans to their own devices. That doesn’t make Roslin angry. Or sad. Or desperate. Her response—I’m paraphrasing, but not that much—is “Wow, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were that stupid. Adama’s gonna kick Gaeta’s punk ass, and afterwards, if you’ve abandoned him, he is coming for your soul.”

While all this is going on Lee and Starbuck have been charging around the Galactica trying to find Adama. After a neat fake-out with an unarmed grenade the two of them get to the brig, and Lee is very upset that his dad’s not there. The entire group goes off to find him. There’s a nice moment where Starbuck stops to get weapons from some dead Marines and Anders immediately falls in behind her to do the same. They’re so similar, and Anders respects Starbuck’s judgement so much. Their romantic relationship didn’t work out, but they could still be such good friends.

Which, of course, is when Anders gets shot in the head.

Lee’s yelling at Starbuck that Anders won’t make it, which is probably accurate, because shot in the head. But Starbuck refuses to leave him, and the others continue on.

Now it’s time for Adama’s trial, which is basically him sitting in a room and getting yelled at for a few minutes before Zarek pronounces him guilty. Zarek gets a call that Tigh and everyone else in the brig are loose, but he turns it around and tells Adama that Tigh was killed trying to escape.

OOF. Bro feels!

I’m really sorry, Admiral, says Gaeta, but you did help Cylons. Like dear departed Tigh, for example, whom you let keep his job after you only found out what he was. Surprisingly, that tactic doesn’t make Adama any friendlier. To quote Supernatural, I’m pretty sure six seconds is too soon.

Right after Adama’s declared guilty a message from Roslin comes through on the PA, telling the fleet the Galactica’s been taken over by Gaeta, and shut down your FTL drives would you please? Turns out Leoben gave her some sort of technological whajahoozit that let her get through the comms block for a few seconds.

Starbuck’s dragging Anders through the halls when they come across Romo, who’s being escorted by a Marine. Said Marine is about to shoot Starbuck, which is bad for her because she’s out of ammo and can’t kill him first. So Romo takes him out with a pen to the neck.

Romo.

Took out an armored, armed Marine.

With a pen.

And then he makes a point of taking his sunglasses from the Marine he just killed.

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate that.

…

…

…

OK. Starbuck asks Romo to help her get Anders to Doc Cottle, and at first he says no and leaves. But then his conscience pokes its head up, and he goes back to help.

And that’s the last we see of them this episode. What happened to Anders?!

Ten of the 35 ships have followed Roslin’s orders and turned off their FTL drives. Zarek, ever the optimist, says that’s great because now they know who’s not with them. They can take the good ships with them when they jump away and leave the bad ships to fend for themselves. Gaeta orders that Marines escort Adama to the main hangar deck to be executed. Benny Kelly goes too, but he lags behind and starts crying. When Lee’s group comes across him he tells them where Adama is and asks he can can join up with them, which is pretty great, actually.

There’s something weird going on with Baltar on the Basestar, by the way. Well, I don’t know if it’s really weird or if just seems weird because all the Gaeta feels in this episode are messing with my head. Baltar’s been getting friendly with a Six who just seems… odd. She has long hair, first off, which none of the other Sixes do. Baltar seems to recognize her from somewhere. She’s just different. And then there’s the way Baltar dreams that Adama’s being executed. It could be a normal nightmare… or it could be a prophetic dream (albeit one of a future that doesn’t end up happening). After he wakes up Weird Six tries to distract him with sex, but he’s paralyzed by a wave of self-loathing because he ran away again. He didn’t escape the Galactica because he was scarred for his life. He escaped because he was sick of the hippie cult. He realizes that, though he’s dismissed them as Grade A idiots in the past, they’re his responsibility, and he has to go back for them.

Wow. That’s some character growth right there.

The cheese, as my grandfather always used to say, is getting binding. Adama’s about to be executed. Lee and the others are trying to get there in time to rescue him. Roslin sends a message to Gaeta saying he has five minutes to surrender. At this point I think he really wishes he could, because we see him in Adama’s office and IS THAT A FRAKKING TEAR?

IT IS.

IT’S A FRAKKING TEAR.

IF THERE WERE A STUFFED ANIMAL HERE I’D RIP ITS HEAD OFF.

He wants so badly to undo what he’s done, but he can’t. I thought for a split second he might surrender, but no. It’s gone too far now. He places the Admirals’ pins that Adama (scornfully) gave him earlier in the episode on Adama’s table, accepting that Adama’s the true leader and he’s not and he never could have been and he tried so hard and got so far, and in the end it doesn’t even matter, oh my frakking Gods, I can’t handle this! Ahem. Anyway. He makes the call to carry out the execution.

But it’s a moot point, because Lee & co. got there and stopped it in time. Adama tells Tigh that he thought he was dead, and Tigh responds that “For a while I was, Bill.”

I.

What?

Meaning when he thought Adama was going to die?

That’s… uncharacteristically sappy of you, Tigh. And I can’t be held responsible for the consequences:

Adama does a bit of speechifying to the Marines who were about to kill, and I guess he gets them on his side, because they all (except the main one) march to the CIC to deal with Zarek and Gaeta.

Meanwhile Tyrol is still crawling through tunnels. This episode must’ve been fun for the actor.

Zarek calls up Roslin and tells her that both Tigh and Adama are dead, and if you thought you would get her to surrender, BOY, YOU ARE SO WRONG. I’ve dealt with a lot of sadness this episode, but this scene with Roslin had me staring at my screen in utter glee. She’s basically like

with a pinch of

and a whole heaping side of

It is, in a word, splendid.

Gaeta and Zarek are about to jump the part of the fleet loyal to them away, but it turns out Tyrol’s been aiming for the FTL drives, which he disables at the very last minute. Props to him for immediately figuring out “Hey, wouldn’t it be good if the mutineers couldn’t take the Galactica and run away?” Though after he’s had his great heroic moment he sees a crack in the wall. Some sort of inner hull breach? Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good.

By this point Gaeta’s realized it’s over. Adama will use his skin for a washcloth. He orders, against Zarek’s urgings, that the ship stop preparing to shoot the Basestar. Adama gets to the CIC and… yep, everything’s over. Gaeta and Zarek surrender.

Roslin and Adama have a reunion, and my moment of happiness—you’ve done so well this episode, my pair of badasses—is halted by the scene that broke my soul.

That would be the Gaeta/Batlar friendship scene. Show, how dare you slam me with a brOTP when Gaeta has minutes left to live. He tells Baltar about his childhood aspirations—at first he wanted to be an architect, and later he came to love science. He even thought he was good at it, “until I met you.”

Baltar’s face. You can tell that ripped out his heart and stomped on it, because he really does care about Baltar. Even when Baltar was a little sh*t like 90% of the time, they must’ve gotten to know each other on New Caprica. There were all the sycophants and the people who wanted to use Baltar for their own purposes—and he absolutely cooperated with that, and encouraged it, because narcissism. But Gaeta was probably the only person in his life whom he could even remotely think of as his friend. And now they both know Gaeta’s going to die.

But Gaeta’s calm. Almost detached. He even jokes with Baltar, making self-deprecating comments about his childhood dreams of making restaurants shaped like food. “I’m fine how things have worked out,” says Gaeta. “Really, I am. I just hope that people realize eventually who I am.” Baltar tells him that he does.

Gaeta and Zarek are taken to the execution chamber, and as if my feels aren’t bad enough already Baltar’s there. He’s always taken the easy path, and no one—including Gaeta—would blame him for not being there in Gaeta’s last moment. But he stays. Gaeta faces his death with dignity. And right before he’s shot the pain/itching/whatever in his missing leg stops.

Did Starbuck and Romo get Anders to Doc Cottle in time? What’s the crack that Tyrol saw in the ship? What was with that weird Cylon? What’ll happen with the government now that the Quorum (minus Lee) is dead? What will Adama do to the people (OK, I’m really only concerned about Racetrack) who worked with Gaeta? At this point I don’t even care. Felix Gaeta, this goes out to you:

In an effort to avoid spoilers, comments on this post have been locked. However, Jill and Susana will be reading comments over at our Facebook page, so if there’s anything you’d like to say in response to this post head on over that way. Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here. Have a (non-spoilery, for the love of God) comment? Hit me up on Twitter.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

I’m starting to see why people hate this half of season four.

No Exit

How is an episode when Ellen comes back so boring?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to see her. But the main reason I wanted her to come back is that I assumed she’d mix things up. But no. Things just go back to the way they were before, even if there are some hints of non-dull-as-heck things yet to come.

BSG has a real problem with pacing. It’s all “boring set-up episode HOLY FRAK HOLY FRAK HOLY FRAK! boring set-up episode HOLY FRAK!” It’s not very fluid. That’s the main problem I have with the back half of season four so far: There have been some great episodes (Gaeta! *sob*), but all in all I feel like everyone’s just kind of… meandering around. There’s no real quest—sure, they’re looking for a habitable planet, but even Adama seems kind of like “Sure, we’ll look for one ’til we run out of food and then we’ll die, whatever. Pour me some algae booze.” There’s no Big Bad. There’s no momentum now that Earth has been weighed, measured, and found wanting. I wouldn’t mind so much if this were a middle season, but it’s the last one. There are only five episodes left after these two. Things should be coming together by now, but instead they’re losing coherency.

Anyway. The recap. We start with Ellen coming back in a new body after Tigh killed her on New Caprica. She has a few seconds of freaking out—surprise, you’re a Cylon!—but then things settle in her brain and she remember who she is. She’s calm and put together. She’s polite to the Centurions. Not so much to Brother Cavil, whom we find out kept her prisoner ever since.

Back on the Galactica Anders—not dead after being shot in the head, yaaaay!—has discovered an unexpected side effect of having a bullet in his brain: He can remember Earth and what happened to him and the rest of the Final Five. Between him explaining the sitch to the other Cylons (plus Starbuck) and Brother Cavil interrogating Ellen, we find out what went down on Ye Olde Nuked Planet.

As we already knew, Soylent Green is people the thirteenth tribe was Cylons. But these Cylons could have babies, so they didn’t need resurrection technology. The Final Five were part of a group, led by Ellen, that reinvented resurrection, which came in awful handy when the planet went kablooey. But only the Final Five were able to regenerate onto a ship hanging out above Earth. They decided to go warn the other twelve colonies about the dangers of nuclear war or inventing robots or something, but because of ~space travel reasons~ it took them several thousand years to get there. When they did it was too late: The first human/Cylon war was already underway.

The Final Five made a deal with the Cylons: They’d make skinjobs for them in exchange for stopping the war. Yeah, I see no possible way helping the Cylons, bent on revenge against humans, to make Cylons who could infiltrate humanity could go wrong. Why would the Centurions even want there to be skinjobs if not to assist their war efforts? How did humans just happen to invent their own version of the 13th colony, anyway? That’s awfully convenient. I don’t like the Cylon mythology we have going. It’s stupid.

The first skinjob created was Cavil, whom Ellen modeled after some kid she grew up with named John. Ellen intentionally gave him and all the other skinjobs something akin to humanity—emotions, limited physical capabilities, limited mental capacity (compared to pure robots), etc.. Not to be mean or anything—Mama Cylon Ellen genuinely didn’t set out to make pure machines. But Cavil didn’t like those limitations, so he and the other second-generation skinjobs killed the Final Five and kept them boxed up ’til he was ready to deploy them into humanity minus their Cylon memories. The point was to make the Final Five feel human suffering, thus making them sympathetic to Cavil’s quest to expunge all the Cylons’ human BS. Cavil’s a whiny little baby about it, by the way. “Boo hoo hoo, I wanna see a supernova without being limited by human eyes. Boo hoo hoo, you gave us emotion, and I don’t like that so I’m going to be emotional at you about it. I hate you, Mom! I hate you I hate you I hate you!”

A few months down the line Brother Cavil wants Ellen to figure out how to re-reinvent resurrection. She tells him she can’t. Fine, Cavil says. I’ll just cut your brain open and pluck the knowledge out.

I’m pretty sure that’s not how the brain works, you bitter little twerp. You’re a bad guy and you’re not even interesting about it.

Cavil tries to get Boomer, who at this point seems like his protégé/maid/sidekick/lover (ewwww), all riled up about how Ellen gave her stupidface emotions, waaaah. Ellen tries to sway her to the side of human things like love and compassion. There’s a moment when Boomer has an angry angst fit over “But who is out there for me to love?!” and there’s a cut to Tyrol on the Galactica. Subtle. Also subtle: Ellen, Mama Cylon, taking a big ol’ conspicuous bite of apple. Don’t hog all the religious symbolism, BSG. Other shows need some. Boomer eventually comes around to Ellen’s side and smuggles her off Cavil’s Basestar.

By now we’re to the present day. Since last episode Tyrol’s found a bunch of other cracks in the Galactica, which makes Adama promote him back to Chief so he can deal with it. After some more investigation Tyrol returns to his tried-and-true position of telling the Old Man things he doesn’t want to hear: The ship’s basically FUBAR. It won’t last much longer. The only way to fix it is to use Cylon tech that will effectively turn the Galactica into a quasi-Cylon itself. Adama doesn’t want to do it. He’s OK with allying with the Cylons, but the idea of merging humanity and Cylonitude is a bit much. And coating the Galactica, his baby, with the same stuff the Basestars are made of? Thanks but no thanks.

But in the end he doesn’t have a choice, so he OKs Tyrol’s project. It’s partially that he accepts it as the only option the fleet has. But he also seems not to give a frak anymore about leadership. He’s boozing it up, popping pills. It’s not like him.

There’s a short scene between Lee and Roslin where the former suggests that when they rebuild the Quorum the members should represent different ships, not different colonies. It’s a good idea, and one he’ll get to enact himself, since Roslin’s effectively making him President. Oh, she’ll still have the title, but he’ll have the power. I understand that—due to her health she has to step back, and actually delegating her responsibilities to someone else first is better than what she did a few episodes ago.

But Presidents shouldn’t be able to appoint their successors. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Dictator.

(Lee has a full-on case of the lip wibbles when Roslin tells him he’s the man for the job, BTW. I can’t decide whether it’s adorable or annoying.)

Back to Anders. While he’s in Cylon prophet mode there are a few more things he tells his Cylon buddies (plus Starbuck): Tory and Tyrol were an item back on Earth. Fine, I don’t care. The Final Five actually made eight Cylon models. The missing Sevens, we learn from Anders and Ellen, was an artsy, sensitive soul named Daniel. Brother Cavil, jealous of the way Mama Cylon Ellen preferred him to all the other “children,” contaminated his genetic code, basically murdering him.

Not much attention is paid to this particular revelation—Starbuck’s worried about there being an extra Cylon until she finds out it’s not her, after which she doesn’t give a frak—but all the same it has the earmarkings of one of BSG‘s “HOMG PLOT TWIST” moments. I’m going to go ahead and theorize that Daniel is Starbuck’s dad. I don’t remember if we ever find out anything about her father, but he never seemed to be in the picture. It’s implied that Cavil killed Daniel before bringing the Final Five back, but he could’ve tortured him with some human suffering first. Starbuck’s something weird, but she can’t be a full-on Cylon, since all those are accounted for (at least based on what we know now, which could easily change). Starbuck has that weird destiny thing going on, plus she’s artistic, and it’s explicitly mentioned that Daniel was, too. At one point Anders, hopped up on Cylon revelations, sees everyone gathered around his bed glowing. That would be a metric ton of Cylons… and Starbuck, the lone (supposed) human.

Anders still has one more surgery to go through, and he wants to postpone it, because when that pesky bullet leaves his brain it might take his new memories with it. Doc Cottle insists that he get the surgery done ASAP, because… well, because there’s a bullet in his brain and they should probably try to get it out. It’s already  messing with his cognitive functions, giving him seizures and aphasia, which makes him say one word when he means to say another. He’s trying so hard to tell his fellow Cylons what he knows, and it’s horribly difficult and risky for him at every turn, and it makes me love him all the more because he refuses to quit. He begs Starbuck to postpone the surgery, because when you went all crazycakes on the Demetrius I supported you, didn’t I? But Starbuck, less of a puppy dog in her loyalty than Anders, gives permission to go ahead with the surgery.

The surgeon is John Hodgman, by the way. What in the holy hell? I have no problem with him, but this random cameo is unnecessarily distracting and weird. Plus it’s a funny cameo. It’s completely out of place.

This episode is structured in such a way that Ellen’s story runs parallel to Anders’. They’re both delivering backstory. They’re both about to be subjected to brain surgery. They both might die. I’m convinced they both will die until Boomer helps Ellen escape. And that bodes well for Anders, right? Especially after Doc Cottle tells Starbuck that the surgery went well and Anders will be fine. Parallel structure. Boom.

Except this is BSG, so something awful’s going to happen at the last minute. Starbuck goes to talk to an unconscious Anders but is told by a nurse that it’s pointless, because he has almost no brain activity. He’s basically a vegetable.

Deadlock

I want to something-lock this episode.

Air.

I mean airlock.

OK, no, I don’t hate it that much, but it was a chance for a stupid joke and I took it.

But it’s still bad.

We start with Caprica being attacked when she goes to Dogsville to get some food rations. Why is she even there? She practically has to put a bag over her head so people won’t notice she’s a Cylon, and then they do anyway, and she gets harassed. Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying it’s her fault. But there’s no indication that the Cylons onboard the Galactica interact with the civilians, because it’s well-known that the civvies hate them. Granted, Caprica does kick her wannabe attackers’ asses. Go go pregnant robot lady. But her being in Dogsville makes no sense within the context of the show. The writers just had her do this completely out of character thing because they needed something to happen.

That’s becoming a trend.

It’s downhill from there. There’s a schmoopy scene of Caprica and Tigh in the sickbay looking at an ultrasound of their unborn child, and I hate it I hate it I hate it. I refuse to accept that the Tigh I know from seasons one through three could have a functional, romantic relationship with anyone. I’m sorry, I just don’t see it. And his relationship with Caprica started on the psychologically frakked-up premise that when he looked at her he literally saw his dead wife. And they’re all hearts and rainbows as a couple now?

Nope. I refuse.

Ellen’s here to bust things up anyway. She and Boomer get to the Galactica on their stolen Raptor, and Boomer’s immediately taken to the brig. Ellen, however, has a very—ahem—affectionate reunion with Tigh. In the last episode Ellen was very different from how we knew her before she died. She was calm, collected, authoritative, still a bit snarky, but on the whole almost maternal, in an “I’m very disappointed in my children” sort of way. But once she gets back to the Galactica she’s her old self: Flashing some leg, coming on to people, immediately starting up her drunk/angry/passionate relationship with Tigh, who goes right along with it even though he’s with Caprica now.

I understand his reaction to having Ellen back, honestly I do. But it’s like he completely forgets that he has a pregnant girlfriend. Tigh has a lot of flaws, but he’s a pretty straight-up dude. This is weird for him. It’s like this episode tried so hard to parallel the one where we first saw Ellen (it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but if memory serves the situation between the two of them is basically identical, at least at first) that it just ignores keeping its characters consistent.

There was one thing I loved, though. Hot Dog’s reaction to seeing Ellen is “How many dead chicks are out there?”

Ellen explains to Adama, Roslin, and Tigh about Brother Cavil wanting to resurrect resurrection. There’s a moment where she asks for booze and Tigh sneaks a look at Adama, since the Old Man’s the one who carries a flask around now. (Tigh ditched booze because the smell upset Caprica’s stomach. Gag me with a spoon.) The judgey look Roslin shoots Adama’s way is a thing of splendor:

Ellen asks to be allowed to see the other Cylons, and you can tell Roslin’s not OK with it, but Adama caves because his ship has Cylon goop on it now, what the hell does he care about anything? Hell, the Cylons can hold a Sadie Hawkins dance in the CIC for all he cares. Adama and Roslin leave, and Tigh and Ellen get bizzay right there on the table. As they do (the do), Caprica over in the quarters she shares with Tigh experiences some fetus-related pain.

Ellen finds out that Tigh *cough* got with Caprica, and she’s none too pleased. Sure, she said she didn’t care if Tigh found someone to be with after she died, but Caprica? She’s like their child! Lay it on thick, Ellen. You’re not the Tighs if you’re not guilt tripping one another and engaging in psychological warfare 24/7. Tigh tells Ellen that he always thought of her when he was with Six, which is partially true, at least. He doesn’t tell her that Six is pregnant.

When did I start watching a soap opera?

Ellen shows up in Anders’ hospital room, where he’s surrounded by his fellow Cylons. She tells them that they made a good go of things with the humans, but they should all go back to the Baseship and live with their fellow Cylons. That’s the exact opposite of something a prophetic/psychic/completely out of it Anders told Tigh last episode: Stuff’s starting to go down, and you need to stay with the fleet.

So obviously Tigh senses something fishy and doesn’t want to go. Athena’s on Ellen’s side and argues that, what with Caprica’s attack, they’re not safe on the Galactica. And they really have to keep Tigh and Caprica’s baby safe, since as the first pure Cylon child he’s what the entire future of the species will be built upon.

Ellen: “Caprica Six… is… pregnant?”

Shhhiiiiiii-ooooot.

Everyone stands around awkwardly while Tigh and Ellen bicker, and Caprica breaks it up by calling for a vote. Stay with the humans or go with the Cylons: Whatever the majority of the Final Five want is what they’ll do. Tigh and Anders vote for staying (well, Anders doesn’t really vote, but everyone knows what he’d say), and Tory and Tyrol vote for going. What the hell, Tyrol? I feel like there’s no rhyme or reason to what side he’s on at any given time. One episode he’s risking life and limb to save the Galactica. The next day he’s all “LOL nope, I’m leaving.” Those two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but all the same, his character feels really fractured right now.

So the decision comes down to Ellen, but she won’t vote, because she isn’t done letting Tigh dangle in the wind hasn’t decided yet.

Side note: Athena’s A-OK with leaving the human fleet? Really? Even though we’ve seen her loyalty to the fleet time and time again. Even though her husband, the father of her child, is also in that human fleet. Did Helo did and I just didn’t notice? Because if the Cylons and humans split apart either she has to leave Helo or he and Hera have to go with the Cylons. Either way, it’s the sort of thing you discuss before outright saying “Yeah, sure, I’ll go.” I’m half-convinced this is supposed to be a random Eight,  because it makes no sense that Athena would be on Ellen’s side.

After that disastrous meeting Roslin intercepts Caprica in the hallway to congratulate her on her pregnancy and apologize on behalf of the fleet for the Dogsville attack. Caprica, understandably, is suspicious. The two of them, plus Athena, had a semi-quasi-partnership when they were dreamwalking together, but there’ve been no shared visions since Caprica got pregnant. Turns out that’s Roslin’s motivation for being so friendly: She wants to know if the baby is “important.”

Yes, of course he is, says Caprica. He’s the most important baby in the history of creation……. to me, because he’s my baby and I love him. Problem?

It’s her day for uncomfortable meetings. Ellen comes to see her as well, and she’s all He loves you so much. You’re the mother of his child! You have nothing to worry about, even though we had sex as soon as he got back and you’re naming your baby Liam, which was the name we chose for our son, not that I’m saying you’re a consolation prize, even though you are, by the way in case you didn’t hear me before we had sex, kay thaaaaanks!

That cuts Caprica deep. But when Ellen starts making threats about how very, very much the Bad Cylons will want to get their hands on Caprica’s son she steps up and warns Ellen that she needs to check herself before she wrecks herself. Ellen says that she doesn’t want to torture Tigh, so she won’t make him choose between them.

Ellen and Tigh have their confrontation, wherein Tigh says he knows Ellen hates him right now, but the Galactica needs the Baseship so he’d thank her very much not to take out her frustrations with him on the rest of the fleet. After some Tigh-style bickering Ellen reveals to the rest of the Cylons that she’s voting in favor of packing up shop and leaving the humans to their own devices. Technically that should be that, since she’s the swing vote, but Tigh refuses to go. Ellen accuses him of loving Adama, the ship, and the fleet more than anything else, including her and Caprica.

BROOOOOOOOOOOOOS.

…also including his unborn child. Ellen’s argument is that the baby would be safer among Cylons. Tigh disagrees, but it’s a moot point, because that’s when Caprica miscarries.

What the holy hell is up with Ellen? Did she cause that? If so, was it intentional?  She apologizes to Tigh and Caprica in sick bay, saying of course humans and Cylons should stay together. She was just angry. But she’s not sincere. Or if she is sincere, she’s sincere in that moment, but when the opportunity to do the same thing rolls around again she’ll take it without reservations. It’s Gaius Baltar Syndrome. Right before the baby dies Ellen makes it seem like she’s taking the high road, telling Caprica that Tigh loves her and they should be a family together. But it looks to me like Ellen knew the baby would die. Please tell me she’s an evil mastermind. Or at least that this isn’t the same “God! God did it! Mysteries!” routine. It’s been four seasons. I’m sick of it. If that’s the endgame, it’s a copout.

Tigh and Adama have a cry, and it’s revealed that the name of the now-dead baby, Liam, was short for William. Tigh was going to name his son after Adama. Well rip my heart out, why don’t you?

This was boring as hell. Occasionally feels-inducing, but dull.

You know who you can tend to rely on to mix things up? Baltar. And this episode gives us HIPPIE CULT WITH GUNS!

During the mutiny Baltar had a grand revelation that he should go back to the Galactica and protect his worshippers. He does the first part—see: the Baltar/Gaeta scene that broke my soul—but at some point he forgot about his pet hippies, because he’s  just now decided to drop in on them and make sure they’re not dead. He must be a little ashamed that it took him so long, because he hides behind a chair and spies on them for a while.

Since Baltar ditched the hippie cult Paula, the one who never drank his Kool-Aid, has become the leader. Under her command they got some guns and were able to keep people from stealing their supplies, and now they have a huge stockpile. Needless to say, Baltar’s not as popular as he used to be. He spins some line of BS about how he stayed away so his devotees could learn to take care of themselves, but they don’t seem to buy it.

Clearly something has to be done. Baltar tags along on one the hippie cult’s trips to Dogsville and runs into a woman he used to know in the Biblical sense. She has a young son. He’s named Gaius, after his father.

Battlestar Galactica, did you just pull a Forrest Gump on me?

Baltar wants to give some of the hippie cult’s food to Li’l Gaius and his mom, not because of any philanthropic instincts, but because the mom’s right there with their starving kid and, well, it’s awkward. When the hippie cult suggests he not give their hard-earned food away to random love babies he goes into speechifying mode, framing the whole thing as WE MUST SAVE THE CHILDREN and I’M GOING TO FEED ALL OF YOU, LOOK HOW AWESOME I AM. The look he shoots Paula is two parts “You hate children and puppies, for shame” and one part “This is how you do it. Watch and learn.”

Baltar and the hippie cult return to hand out food to appreciative civilians, but things go wrong when the Sons of Ares show up and steal everything. There’s a fun moment where Baltar tells Paula and Jeanne (Baltar’s #1 devotee) to unholster their guns and defend the food, and… well, let’s just say the world’s best bodyguards they are not.

Baltar, thoroughly disgraced, hangs around around the periphery of the hippie cult headquarters watching everyone else fawn over Paula. Head Six—she’s back, yeeeeah!—prompts Baltar to give a great speech about giving and humanity and justice and WE NEED GUNS!

*cue raucous cheering from me and the hippie cult*

You go, Head Six.

Baltar visits Adama and explains that Dogsville is filled with people who have neither food nor representation. They’re also pissed and scared at the way the Cylon and human fleets are merging. If something doesn’t change there’ll be a revolution. Luckily, Baltar knows just what to do.

A few scenes later marines are giving the hippie cult guns.

I would give my left boob to know what went down in the rest of that conversation. How exactly was Adama convinced that it’d be a good idea for Baltar—Baltar, of all people!—to have an armed militia at his command. Adama gives less of a frack than it should be humanly possible to give at this point.

Let’s get this plotline started!

(Oh, and Anders’ brain waves come back and start doing la cucaracha. Tweedle deedle tweedle deedle…)

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

My last Battlestar Galactica newbie recap before the finale. God help me.

Someone to Watch Over Me

The hippie cult hasn’t started shooting anyone yet. In fact, there is no hippie cult in this episode. I am disappoint. Instead there’s Starbuck doing things that Starbuck wouldn’t ever do for the sake of an emotional reveal you can see from a mile away.

Since the discovery that she’s not a human, not yet a Cylon, Starbuck’s spiralled into a state of depression. (OK, OK, she doesn’t know for sure that she’s not a human. Nor, for that matter, do we. But there’s something up with her, and if I feel like paraphrasing Britney Spears there’s no power on this Earth that can stop me.) She and her pilots have been doing the same thing week after week: Going out on patrols and looking for a habitable planet. But the clock is ticking. Before the only real limit was running out of food and fuel, but now the Galactica’s about to snap in two. There’s nothing anybody can do but hope the repairs take, suffer through increasingly frequent power outages, and continue on their likely fruitless hunt for a new home.

On top of that, Anders is still in a coma. Last episode his brain waves came back, but no one knows why. Put all that together and Starbuck’s hit rock bottom. She even gets an angsty shower scene. Every show needs one.

In true Starbuck fashion she starts hanging out and being depressed at the Galactica’s bar, where she meets an unnamed piano player/composer with whom Starbuck bonds via snarky banter.

Also he’s her dad.

It’s obvious. From like the first two minutes.

He’s her dad.

To help cheer her up Helo has managed to find all of Starbuck’s possessions, which were auctioned off  after she died that one time. It’s a sweet gesture, because Helo’s a sweet dude. I’m glad they’ve managed to rebuild their friendship after he mutinied against her (though if memory serves this is the first one-on-one interaction they’ve had since then, so… seems a little abrupt). The only thing Starbuck wants is a tape of piano music, which was totally by her dad, who is totally also the guy in the bar, c’mon BSG, don’t act like we don’t know that.

Helo doesn’t say “Well what the frak am I supposed to do with all this other stuff that I went through the trouble of getting for you, then? We’re on a ship. My storage space is not exactly unlimited!” He’s probably not even thinking it, because he’s so nice. I wouldn’t be that nice.

On her way out Starbuck gets a gift from Hera: A drawing of stars that of course will turn out to be something else, because any time Hera’s in the spotlight it’s because she’s doing something creepy.

Speaking of creepy: Boomer! Her inner manipulative crazy person really comes out this episode. Tyrol goes to visit her in the brig, because after all that’s happened in their lives—her shooting Adama and turning out to be a Cylon, him going all robo-racist on her and later turning out to be a Cylon himself, him marrying Cally, her siding with Cavil—he never stopped loving her. That siding with Cavil thing means the Cylons (who now have a representative in the quorum, BTW) want Boomer to be extradited and tried for treason, which will doubtless end in her being executed. Tyrol tries to convince Roslin not to do it, but the President rightly refuses. She’s dangerous, she tells him, and you know how she loves emotional manipulation. Get your head together. Ellen, Tigh, and Tory also want Boomer to be spared, but to pull rank over their fellow Cylons would be to “set themselves up as Gods.”

Boomer and Tyrol get all lovey-dovey from opposite sides of the brig wall. She says she wanted to hate him but she still thinks about him every day. Tyrol says he’d have done things differently if he knew what he was earlier. Etc. etc. Boomer suggests that they make the most of the time they have together, which means pulling Tyrol into a projection of the house they’d planned on building together before the colonies got nuked. Except Tyrol assumed they’d make the most of their time by, like, talking or sitting together with some Vulcan kissing mixed in or something. So when he finds himself in a model of a house that Boomer created from memory, down to the last detail (wedding pictures on the mantel! That’s not weird), he’s understandably skeeved and runs away.

Eventually he comes around to the idea of gallivanting around their dream house. When she zaps him there a second time he sees the daughter she’s created for them, which is way, waaaay beyond the pale. He’s all happy and crying that they have a kid, but… it’s a fake kid, Tyrol. She was literally made up.  You know this. Stop buying into Boomer’s freaky as hell shenanigans.

Over in pianoland Starbuck’s started to help Spirit Papa Thrace with his composing, and in the process she opens up about her father, who taught her to play the piano before he abandoned the family. She also unloads her existential crises—how she doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t know what she should be doing. The atmosphere of the Starbuck scenes is almost… ghostly, in a way. Removed from reality. You get the sense that Starbuck figures out, or at least senses that this guy is her dad, fairly early on, even though she never outright says she knows. Later on Spirit Papa Thrace tells Starbuck that he left his wife and kid because the Missus wanted him to stop playing the piano and get a steady job. ‘Buck goes off on him, talking about how her dad abandoned her and she never played the piano again after he left.

I call BS. Starbuck’s been through some shit, but there’s no way she’d talk about her daddy issues with a random stranger in a bar, no matter what feeling he gave her, no matter what her mental state is. She’s built up way too many walls for that.

Spirit Papa Thrace convinces her to play this one special song that her dad taught her. And he’ll even help her play it! Be more obvious, show. It turns out the stars in the drawing Hera gave Starbuck are actually notes… for the song Starbuck was taught by her father… which is also All Along the Watchtower.

Tigh and Tory, hanging out in the bar, are all ???!??!??!! when they hear Starbuck playing the song that activated their Cylonitude. After their father/daughter duet Spirit Papa Thrace disappears. Later on Ellen tells Tigh that Hera must be “plugged into” the thing that’s been manipulating all the Cylons (and, unbeknownst to them, Baltar).

Are we finally going to find out what all the Head Six/Head Baltar/hallucination stuff is?! Only four eps left. We’d better.

Tyrol decides that he can’t let Boomer die, so he engineers a prison break that involves her posing as Athena and going out on her good twin’s hunting-for-a-planet excursion. She breaks out of the prison cell and knocks out her double with zero problems, but there’s a slight hitch when Helo shows up. Only Helo thinks Boomer is his wife, and seeing as his wife’s supposed to be heading out on a six-day mission he’s feeling a little frisky. So Helo and Boomer do the horizontal mambo mere feet away from Athena, who’s been beaten and tied up in a bathroom stall but is still completely conscious and aware of what’s going on.

Damn, BSG. That’s dark, even for you.

As if that’s not bad enough, Boomer kidnaps Hera by taking her out of daycare, stuffing her in a crate, and putting her on Athena’s Raptor. She asks Tyrol to come with her, though she leaves out the whole BTW I kidnapped a kid thing. He elects to stay behind, and they have one kiss in fantasy house land before she makes to jet.

Athena comes to and alerts Helo to the fact that, hey, Boomer knocked me out. Also, that wasn’t me you boinked. Right away they figure out that she’s trying to run away with Hera. Adama tries to stop her from taking off, but he’s not quite fast enough. Boomer jumps away, causing massive damage to the Galactica in the process. Roslin, who hasn’t had much of anything to do this episode, collapses at the exact moment Boomer escapes with Hera. When Tyrol finds out the kidnapping he’s like

with a side of

…though he doesn’t tell anyone about his part in the kidnapping. I wonder if he will. His character’s been all over the place lately.

Tigh and Ellen talk about how taking Hera back to Brother Cavil was Boomer’s plan all along. So she must’ve known she’d get arrested, but she assumed she’d be able to manipulate Helo into helping her escape with her weirdo dream house.

That’s… a leap. But it worked. As a plan, it’s more sensible than Silva’s in Skyfall/Loki’s in The Avengers/Khan’s in Star Trek Into Darkness. And hey, I like seeing more of the Eights’ tendency toward stereotypical psychological thriller crazy girlfriend-ness. It’s interesting. And she’s really good at it.

In the last few minutes of the episode we see Starbuck laying with a still-comatose Anders, listening to her father’s tape. So she’s finally gotten over some of hatred of her dad. And her relationship with Anders has finally improved. When he’s frakking comatose.

Islanded In a Stream of Stars

Everything’s awful for everyone.

Fusing Cylon tech to the Galactica, while a great idea in theory, isn’t actually working, so the military will probably have to say goodbye to its home and relocate to the Basestar. Cue sad Adama.

Roslin’s cancer is in its final stages, and Anders is still comatose. Cue sad Starbuck, Adama, Roslin, and me.

Hera’s been kidnapped by Boomer so Cavil can run experiments on her and create a whole new race of human-Cylon hybrids. Cue sad Helo and Athena.

But Ellen thinks she knows where Boomer’s taken Hera: A colony that’s basically the Cylons’ home base. It’s where they hung out in between the first and second Cylon/human wars. She even knows where it is. Lee, fulfilling the role of the jackass in this particular scene, argues against sending a rescue mission for one little girl. His decision is borne of practicality–they’d be attacking all the Cylons, not just a few ships—but it’s also grade-A stupid. Hera is obviously incredibly important to Cavil’s plan for the future of the Cylon race. He needs her for whatever nefarious BS he’s planning. So the humans need to get her back. Yeah, it’s a risk, but it’s not like the fleet has a heck of a lot of time left the way things are now.

Starbuck brings everyone up to date on the weirdness with Hera’s music from the last episode, but Adama extends a firm middle finger to the idea that the little Cybaby has something to do with the ~~destiny~~ of the human race. He’s lost faith, but he’s not being a total bonehead (Lee), so he agrees to send out a Heavy Raider to do recon on where Ellen says the colony is.

He orders that Helo and Athena not be told about it, because… because reasons. He doesn’t want to get their hopes up or something. The two of them are completely wrecked by the loss of their daughter, and it’s clear that Athena places some of the blame on Helo, if only subconsciously. He had sex with the kidnapper, after all, even if he didn’t realize it at the time, which is an extra kick in the metaphorical balls. Complicating Athena’s mental state is that she, along with Roslin and Caprica, have started having their shared opera house dream again, except this time it’s rearing its head even when they’re awake.

Meanwhile the Galactica starts to literally break apart. Earlier in the episode we saw a slice of bad human-Cylon relations when two members of the repair team—a random human and a Six—almost came to blows over which race was responsible for the alloy not working. Now that Six sacrifices herself to save Random Human Dude when there’s a breach in the hull.

Awwww. Humans and Cylons starting to work together.

But still, a bunch of humans and Cylons are dead because of the breach, and things don’t look to be improving any time soon. Pretty much the entire quorum wants the Galactica to be abandoned, including the Cylon rep Sonja, who recommends moving shop to the Basestar. But Adama, Tigh, and Lee are all like

except not quite so fabulously, a minus the Santa hats.

Moving in WTF territory, Baltar’s gone all Precious Moments and is obsessed with angels now.

OK, whatever.

If it seems a bit (read: incredibly) random, when Baltar waxes rhapsodic over pirate radio about how he’s seen an angel it’s clear that he means Head Six. So that makes sense. It was her ‘n’ him at the beginning, and it’ll be her ‘n’ him at the end. I smell a plot twist. Bring it.

Though the very first version of Six Baltar got to know was, of course, Caprica. The two of them have a tearful reunion in hippie cult headquarters. Baltar offers his condolences for Caprica’s lost child and lets her know he can offer her food and a place to stay. Caprica interprets that as “Hey, wanna join my harem?” and refuses, telling Baltar he hasn’t changed a bit.

Was he offering her a place in his cult? I think not, but I also think, if she’d accepted, that’s where she’d have ended up. He’s changed, but his behavior hasn’t, and he’s yet to transform his new, nobler intentions into less self-serving actions. Three episodes left, Baltar. You’re running out of time!

Tigh has a Character Moment when one of the Eights injured in the hull breach asks to see him before she dies because he’s her father (in the kinda-religious, kinda-literal sense). He’s skeptical at first, reminding her of all the time he spent trying to kill Cylons, but his inner conflict doesn’t stop him from comforting her as she’s dying.

Later on Ellen and Tigh have a conversation about Cylonitude, in which Tigh’s all like “My people are the ones on this ship, not Cylons!!!! Grarrrrgh, where’s the booze?” and Ellen’s all “Nooooooo, you’re a Cylon! You have millions of children, and they’re all going to die if you don’t so something to help Hera! PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIPULATION!” At least I hope there’s psychological manipulation. God, let Ellen be up to something. It would be such a letdown if Cavil were the Big Bad.

Also, I may have Photoshopped Eight and Tigh into Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Hey, I have one recap left after this one. I have to get all the stupid photo manips out of my system.

Starbuck engages in a bit of psychological warfare of her own. Hers is using the bathroom in front of Baltar so he’ll be really uncomfortable. Ahhh, Starbuck. I’ll miss you when BSG is over. She asks him if he believes all that hokum about angels, and when he says he does, she tells him about how she came back from the dead and challenges him to do SCIENCE on her corpse’s dogtags to find out WTF is up with her.

He does that science, and a few scenes later, after the communal funeral service, he reveals his findings: Starbuck was dead. Now she’s alive. She is one of the angels who walks among us. I was right about there being life after death, suckaaaaas!

A few thoughts:

A) Dick move hijacking the funeral like that. It’s prime Baltar. Good to see, as always.

B) Starbuck never told anyone about finding her corpse on Earth, did she? Awkwaaaard?

and C) Starbuck coming back to life means she’s an angel? Ha ha, good one, show. Now what is she really? Nah, it’s OK, you can tell me the less stupid answer during the finale.

Starbuck slaps Baltar (WOOOOO!!!!!!) and stalks away. Later she’s confronted by Lee, who tells her that he’s there for her no matter what. It looks like they might kiss, but then they don’t. FINALLY. Bro stage: Achieved!

The ‘buck’s taken to visiting the Basestar, where Anders has been plugged into the mainframe in an attempt to reboot his brain. Except all it does is make him hybrid-y. That impression’s solidified when Starbuck pulls out a gun to mercy kill him (after telling him that it doesn’t matter whether he’s a Cylon or not, because he’s just her Sam, ow my heart), and he pulls the hybrid-esque move of grabbing her arm and babbling nonsense about how Kara Thrace is the harbinger of death. He also manages to frak with the Galactica’s electricity, a result of the Cylon alloy the ship is now covered in. Tigh realizes that, because the fleet’s FTL drives were upgraded with Cylon tech, Anders could theoretically jump the fleet to who knows where, so he orders that he be taken offline.

Starbuck doesn’t give much a frak, though. Later in the episode she plugs him back into the Basestar so the pair of them can somehow figure out what the deal is with her and Hera’s music.

Meanwhile the scout’s efforts to find the Cylon home base have been less than successful, because at some point Cavil moved it. The new one looks straight out of Rita Repulsa’s moon base from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Hey, it’s in space and it’s purple. That’s all I need. Hera and Boomer, on their way there, are not getting along, mainly because Boomer has never been one for the whole comfort-a-crying-child thing, even if said child is one she didn’t just kidnap. But they start to bond when Boomer finds out that Hera can project. They get a bit of quality time in in the house Boomer built for Tyrol and their made-up child. But then the pair of them get to the colony, and Hera gets handed over to Brother Cavil.

Boomer looks right on the edge of stepping up, disobeying Brother Cavil, and rescuing Hera from what’s sure to be a future of medical experimentation. Do it, Boomer! Be your inner Athena!

Back on the Galactica Helo begs Adama for a chance to go look for his daughter. But the Old Man refuses, telling him about the mysterious colony and asking him to accept the fact that his daughter’s dead. But Helo, a mensch through and through, refuses. The Galactica is dead, he says, but Hera might not be. Please give me a chance to do something. Adama, thoroughly defeated, just walks away.

Helo’s going to save the day. I can sense it. WWHD, WHAT WOULD HELO DO?

Following an emotional (and pot-assisted) conversation between Adama and Roslin, Adama decides to abandon the Galactica. There’s some ANGRY PAINTING

and some CRYING

And a toast with Tigh accompanied by EMOTIONAL BAGPIPE MUSIC

And it’s all very sad. Now bring on the finale!

Meet me back here on January 8, 2014 for the very last BSG Newbie Recap. Pray for me.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 (and a little bit 2014) is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE YELLED AT A SHOW LIKE THIS. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU. WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU! HOW DARE YOU!

Daybreak (Part 1)

Aka the relatively boring setup episode before everything goes to hell. It’s been four seasons. I know how this show works.

We start off grooving back in flashback land, where Adama’s being told by higher-ups to do something he doesn’t want to do. Meanwhile Baltar’s off in a limo being a premium-grade entitled little shit to Caprica, whom he’s just met. They’re being all grope-y and flirty, and we almost learn what Caprica’s real/fake name is, and holy crap, I just realized we never heard Baltar call her, or Head Six for that matter, by the name she went by pre-genocide. I guess it’s not important. We have enough Six names anyway. Caprica, Sonia, Head Six, Gina, that journalist from back in season one. (WTF happened to her, anyway? That episode was stupid.) It’s enough.

Anywhoodle, in the middle of their macking Baltar gets an urgent call. Turns out his dad tried to stab his home health nurse. Not cool, Papa Baltar! Baltar has to go try and convince the nurse to stay, and as a result Caprica finds herself privy to some father-son bickering. We knew that Baltar has some issues with his home world—it was a backwater bit of nowhere, and Baltar changed his entire identity, up to an including his accent, so he’d be included among the fancy Caprica types—but in this scene we find out that he has some daddy issues, too.

Why am I not surprised?

Elsewhere in flashbacktopia Starbuck meets Lee for the first time when he comes over to have dinner with the ‘buck and her fiancé/his brother. There’s some foreshadowing where Zak ribs Lee about stealing his girlfriend. Roslin, wearing bright, airy clothes and looking like she hasn’t a care in the world, is seen recovering from a baby shower with her sisters, one of whom is pregnant. Later on a pair of police officers inform her that her sisters and father were killed in a drunk driving accident. There’s no crying or asking questions—she just shuts down and asks the officers to leave. Yeah, that’s more the Roslin we know. In a daze, she walks through the park and has a nice shower in the fountain, bystanders looking on wondering who this weird lady is getting all religious metaphor-y while they’re trying to play touch football.

From there we’re back to the present day. Roslin is still dying of cancer. Lee is overseeing the death (basically) of the Galactica. Adama is packing to the sweet, sweet sounds of bagpipe music.

Meanwhile Paula, the non-hippie hippie whose name I still have to look up even though it’s been like a season, chats with Baltar about all the political power they, meaning their cult, has. Head Six agrees with her, telling Baltar that humanity’s final hour is coming and he will be its architect, blah de blah blah. He puts his head in his hands, like he’s not ready to deal with this, thank you very much.

In another flashback we see the second meeting between Baltar and Caprica. The stealth Cylon, determined to wrap Baltar around her little finger and get the access codes to Caprica’s defense systems, breaks into his apartment so she can let him know she moved his dad into the absolute perfect nursing home, ohmygod. Most people would be exceptionally freaked out by this. Like, maybe send a text message asking if you want to have coffee? But they just met, and already Caprica knows Baltar better than that. He has women practically waiting in line to sleep with him. He’s a man who prides himself on his intelligence, so to reel him in one has to intrigue him.

Plus he’s lazy, or at least he hates making an effort when he can have other people do things, so dealing with his dad problem for him can’t hurt. Thus begins their epic manipulative romance.

Back on the Galactica Baltar approaches Lee about giving his cult group a voice in the government. The representative doesn’t even have to be me, he argues, even though if we’re being honest it probably will end up being me. Huh. Funny how that works out!

Lee is all

…because Baltar’s a self-serving asshole with a history of manipulating the system. And he wants to be a handed an official seat in the government? Really? All Baltar’s rhetoric about democracy and the people deserve a voice and we need a new way of thinking is just that: rhetoric. His devotees, as members of the fleet, already have a voice, same as all the non-cult members do. They’re not disenfranchised. This isn’t a theocracy. (Well with Roslin’s prophecies it kinda was, but whatever.) Baltar isn’t out for justice, he’s out for power, even if he’s managed to trick himself into believing otherwise.

Lee calls Baltar on his major personality failings and challenges him to name a single thing he’s done that didn’t benefit him in any way. Which Baltar admits he can’t do.

He gives a shifty little look as he leaves the room, though. What’s he planning?!

Helo has a depressing conversation with Tyrol, who apparently was either caught or turned himself in after helping Boomer escape, ’cause he’s in the brig now. Tyrol’s all “Skinjobs are all the same. They’re just machines, and you can’t trust them. I know that because I created them that way. Waaaaaaah. I’m a monsterrrrrr.”

Oh honey. Get over yourself.

Speaking Boomer, over on the Cylon colony she stands up for Hera, telling Cavil she’s frightened and misses her mom, so maybe that‘s why she hasn’t been eating. Just a thought. But Cavil doesn’t give two figs and is ready to move into the let’s-cut-this-cute-little-kid-open stage.

Oh, and SIMON HAS A LINE. But it’s generic expositionary dialogue. Of course it is.

Back on the Galactica Athena’s lost hope that they can save Hera. Helo tries to convince her otherwise, and I’m inclined to take his side, because he’s Saint Helo. (I do not mean that in a sarcastic, oh-yeah-he’s-just-so-perfect, Lee Adama sense. Helo’s really grown on me. How is he not boring? HOW?!)

Adama’s schlepping around the Galactica when he runs into Hot Dog, who’s coming back from the memorial wall with some pictures to take to the Basetar. See, most of the pics of the dear departed have someone to claim them, but there are still some where no one knows who the subjects are, because whoever put the pictures up have also died. It’s very sad.

Adama, struck by all the poignancy, goes off to stand in a conveniently placed shaft of light in a symbolic doorway. The doge meme isn’t dead quite yet, right?

Meanwhile Starbuck and a comafied Anders are still trying to figure out what the heck’s going on with Hera and those musical notes. Adama visits her and asks whether all that stuff about her having come back from the dead is true. She says it is, and he assures her that it doesn’t matter, because she’s his daughter all the same. Riiiiight in the feels.

There’s an interlude of Anders in flashback land, where he’s telling a reporter that what he likes about pyramid is the precision and the beauty of physics. I know this is some retroactive foreshadowing about Anders being a Cylon, but really, what I got out of it is ANDERS IS A MATH NERD.

And I dig that.

And I also miss Gaeta.

Anders has been doing his hybrid babbling, talking about how they have to “find the perfect world for the end of Kara Thrace.” While we were privy to Anders geeking out about angles, Starbuck and Adama came to some sort of decision about a super-important question they’d ask him. And there’s a DRAMA ZOOM, because every once in a while a show has to get its Supernatural on, OK?

Then we get a random flashback scene with Lee fighting a pigeon. Fine, fine, it’s supposed to highlight how the character’s evolved from drunk irresponsibility pre-series to the über-competent quasi-president he is now. Whatever. It was Lee vs a pigeon. I found this on Blingee and I can’t not use it:

Apparently Adama and Starbuck asked Anders about the location of the Cylon colony, and apparently his babbling self actually answered them, because now Adama’s all ready to charge in with the Galactica and rescue Hera. It’ll almost definitely a be suicide mission: Because of Science Reasons there’s only one way to approach the colony, and that’ll be heavily guarded by everything the Cylons have. Plus there’s the whole thing with the Galactica practically falling apart. But Adama’s determined to do it.

Oh, and RACETRACK IS STILL ALIVE. It comes out that she was locked up after participating in Gaeta’s mutiny (*sob*), but since Adama neeeds all the volunteers he can get for his rescue mission he lets the mutineers out.

There’s a BSG-style emotional scene where Adama gathers everyone on the hangar deck and asks them to decide whether they’re going with him or staying behind. The Final Five side with Adama, as does Caprica. Doc Cottle tries to go, but Adama tells him not to, because the rest of the fleet needs a Doctor. Lee and Starbuck are on-board. Roslin, who earlier got one final flashback about how she’s been a shut-in since her family died and she doesn’t want to go into politics, puts on her wig and leaves the hospital to go with Adama and the rest.

(Side note: She’s been rocking quite the high-quality wigs. Who had them in their luggage after the colonies got nuked?)

It looks for a second as if Baltar’s going to go—he looks at Caprica, almost like he’d go to prove himself to her. It still wouldn’t be that “selfless act” Lee was talking about, but that’s a moot point, because he decides to stay behind.

BALTAR’S GONNA WRECK SOME STUFF, MOTHERFRAKKERS.

Daybreak (Part 2)

Ways in which I did not expect an episode of Battlestar Galactica‘s three-part series finale to begin: Tigh trying to buy Adama a lap dance at a strip club.

I just… I have nothing to say to that.

(Except that Tigh tries to cheap the dancer out of her normal fee and makes this face. It’s pretty wonderful.)

Last episode Adama was offered a desk job by his higher-ups, and this episode Tigh convinces him to take it, even though it’s obvious that Adama’s heart really isn’t in it. The flashback sequences in this trio of episodes are all about their subjects—Adama, Roslin, Starbuck, Baltar, Caprica, Lee—placing themselves on the path they’re destined to be on. When a drunk Adama goes outside, vomits all over himself (lovely), and stares dopily at the stars, we know that the Galactica is where he’s meant to be.

In their own flashback Lee and Starbuck, just having met for the first time, are getting along famously. There’s banter. There’s snarkiness. Zak brings up the Adama Drama between Lee and pops, and Starbuck’s intrigued by it. Later, after a lightweight Zak passes out, Starbuck and Lee proceed to do shots together. There’s a lot of bonding going on.

Back in the present day the human race is preparing to split in two: The majority will wait in safety at the rendezvous point while a smaller number goes off in the Galactica to rescue Hera or die trying. Baltar, who elected to stay behind, is getting his angst on, but Head Six pops up to tell him to cut that jazz out, ’cause he’s doing what God wants him to: Taking charge of mankind and leading it to its end.

That doesn’t sound ominous or anything.

Roslin, meanwhile, is getting ready to go with the suicide mission crew. Doc Cottle gives her enough injections to prolong her life by two days, but after that… well, she’s gonna die. Lee and Helo tell the marines and the Raptor pilots, respectively, about what the rescue mission entails. Adama tells his CIC peeps it’s not safe to use nukes or missiles (~foreshadowing~), so this’ll be a good old fashioned gun battle. The Final Five, for their part, will be helping out by plugging Anders into the Galactica so he can communicate directly with the colony’s hybrid and get them to slow down their shooting.

With Adama, Lee, and Roslin all going to their probable deaths, the fleet needs both a new admiral and a new President. For the former, Adama chooses Hoshi.

And as the new President we get none other than ROMO EFFING LAMPKIN, who doesn’t look too pleased at his new job, but hey, when has he looked pleased?

BACKGROUND CHARACTERS FOR THE WIN!

At the last minute Baltar decides he’s staying to help rescue Hera. Hippie Cult Paula doesn’t approve, but no one really cares about Hippie Cult Paula (too harsh)? Baltar’s selfless act: Achieved.

After one last inspiring speech from Adama the mission begins and the Galactica jumps to right outside the Cylon colony’s front door. Immediately the Galactica gets fired upon big-time, but Anders is able to link up with the hybrids and get them to cool their jets. But the good guys aren’t out of the woods yet. There are still Raiders coming, and the strike team led by Lee still has to get into the colony.

How do they get in? BY USING THE GALACTICA AS A BATTERING RAM.

That works.

Lee’s team and Starbuck’s team, which Athena and Helo are also a part of, storm around the colony looking for Hera, who’s being operated on at this very moment by Simon. Boomer asks if he might want to hit the pause button until the attack’s over, but Simon says nah. I know we’re gonna win, because we have the superior numbers. There’s no possible way this could end badly for me!

Cue Boomer snapping Simon’s neck and running off with Hera.

Oh, and also: Racetrack dies. We don’t see her die, but a rock comes through the window of her Raptor and crushes the head of her copilot Skulls. So yup. Out in space in a ship with a hole in it. She’s a goner. Pause for ABJECT MISERY.

Battlestar Galactica, if anything happens to Hot Dog now SO HELP ME!

Cavil, Simon, and Doral have found the body of the Simon Boomer killed, so they know she’s betrayed them and has Hera. As a result they decide to “go on the offensive” and invade the Galactica. Simon, the group’s Legolas, points out that they should be careful not to kill Hera in the crossfire.

Caprica and Baltar, meanwhile, are waiting on the Galactica with guns to defend the ship from Centurion invaders. Caprica tells Baltar she always wanted to be proud of him, and now she is. It’s a touching moment—when they kiss, it’s probably the first genuine kiss the pair of them have ever shared. Head Six breaks up the emotion by chiming in that “All the pieces are falling into place.”

But wait.

Both Baltar and Caprica can see her!

Head Baltar’s there, and both of them can see him too.

Boomer, carrying Hera, comes across Athena, Starbuck, and Helo. Boomer hands Hera over, but Athena’s not inclined to be too forgiving. Boomer understands that—she says she knows nothing can change the things she did, but they all make choices, and rescuing Hera is her last one.

Then Athena guns her down. Well then.

Lee hasn’t really had much to do this episode aside from run around the colony with his group of marines, hair looking like he’s straight off an ’80s romance novel cover. He meets up with Starbuck’s group and they head back to the Galactica, where Baltar shoots their Centurion guards, thinking they’re bad guys. Caprica figures out what’s going on and physically stops him before he kills any non-machines.

Baltar:

Roslin, who’s been helping out in sickbay, injects herself with her very last dose of medicine. That’s when she hallucinates herself into the opera house and takes off, because I have religious destiny stuff to do! Meanwhile Doral SHOOTS HELO, and oh hell NO you did not! While Athena’s trying to staunch the bleeding Hera runs away, because she’s worse than Carl from The Walking Dead. Helo tells Athena to go after Hera, even though if she leaves his might bleed out.

So now Hera’s running around the Galactica, and Roslin and Athena are trying to find her. Roslin gets to her and shields her from Brother Cavil and his band of merry Centurions, but when she turns around Hera’s run away again. Dammit, Hera. Same as in the opera house vision, Hera comes across Caprica, who picks her up and carries her to Baltar. Then Caprica and Baltar are in their own vision: The one where they saw the Final Five in the opera house. They make their way to front of the opera house, which in non-hallucination-land is the CIC. There they see the Final Five standing together the exact same way they saw them in their vision. Honestly, this whole sequence is striking, but I don’t get the point of it. Did their visions actually lead any of them to this point? Would they not have gotten there anyway?

Brother Cavil (Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.) uses the distraction of a minor explosion to pop up and put a gun on Hera. She represents the future of my species, he explains, and I’m not going to give her up. Baltar explains that she’s the future of humanity and of Cylon(ity) and proceeds to go into prime speech mode, rhapsodizing about how there’s some weird force working through Hera, and whatever it is—Gods, the gods, whatever—it can’t be explained by rational means. But it doesn’t matter, because it exists, and it has the destiny of both species in its hands. Everyone has to work together.

Cool speech, bro. But if this show’s entire explanation for all the crazy stuff that’s been going on—Hera’s musical notes, the shared hallucinations, etc—ends up being nothing more than “God did it!” I swear to a nebulous-yet-powerful supreme being I will break things.

Tigh steps in to offer a less flowery but more practical incentive for the Cylons to back off: Resurrection technology. The Final Five will reinvent it if Cavil gives Hera back and promises to leave humanity in peace forever. Cavil agrees, and both he and Adama order their respective forces to stand down. The episode ends with Cavil assuring Adama he’s as good as his word.

Yeeeeah, no. I have no reason to believe that’s true.

Music break:

Daybreak (Part 3)

The pigeon returneth!

And some other stuff happens.

Turns out Cavil didn’t get a chance not to be true to his word. Each of the Final Five know part of how to make resurrection work, so in order to bring the whole thing together they have to put their hands into hybrid Anders’ goopy bathwater and do a giant Cylon mind meld. When they do that each of the Final Five find out everything about one another… all their dark secrets… including, say, if one of them killed the other’s wife and made it look like a suicide. That sort of thing.

Tyrol has a moment of channeling Vincent D’Onofrio from Full Metal Jacket before he loses his shit, breaking off the mind meld and snapping Tory’s neck. So now Brother Cavil and the bad Cylons are like

and proceed to open fire. Shortly thereafter Cavil, realizing there’s no way he can win, kills himself.

…Even though he knows he can’t resurrect. I understand that he’d rather die than be taken prisoner; without Hera as a bargaining chip there’s no way he’s getting out alive. But still, his death is really abrupt considering he’s been the main antagonist for the past half-season. The last we see of him is a half-second of him going “Ah, frak it” and shooting himself in the head, unnoticed and un-remarked upon by the rest of the characters.

But on the plus side, at the very beginning of this episode one of the Dorals let fly this epic eyeroll upon seeing the corpse of another him. It is, bar none, the best thing in this episode.

The second best thing in this episode: Last episode Racetrack and Skulls were killed (*sob*), but not before they armed their nuclear weapons as a precautionary measure. When a chunk of rock jostles their ship Racetrack’s hand—or, well, the hand of her corpse—comes down on the trigger.

Am I sad that Racetrack died? Yes. Am I pumped that the last thing her character got to do was accidentally nuke the Cylon colony? Hell frakking yeah! Shine bright like a diamond you cynical, wonderful pilot you.

The fact that the colony’s blowing up right next to them is a pretty big reason for the Galactica to GTFO, so Adama orders Starbuck to jump the ship away. Only there’s no time to pull up the rendezvous coordinates, so in a fit of either religious inspiration or I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-else-to-do Starbuck plugs in the notes of Hera’s song—which she already translated into numbers in the hopes of finding some clue as to her identity—into the FTL drive.

Turns out Hera’s song? The song that also woke up the Final Five? Contains the coordinates to Earth.

But… we already found Earth. How are there two? Apparently that question isn’t deemed important enough to answer—even though it’s a pretty glaring question—because it’s never addressed. The characters don’t even realize that they’re on Earth. Once they get there Adama says that they can call it Earth because it represents their hopes and dreams. Really? No one recognizes that the continents look exactly the same? We’re never going to find out what the hell is up with this planet?

And also. Turns out “Starbuck’s an angel” isn’t a stupid placeholder explanation for the big mystery of Starbuck’s identity, but the actual stupid explanation for the big mystery of Starbuck’s identity. What the hell?! There are angels all of a sudden? What, are there Gorgons too? Titans? What are angels even supposed to be in the BSG verse?

We get some flashbacks to Starbuck and Lee’s first meeting, and they’re being all drunk and flirty and Starbuck’s talking about how she’s afraid, not of death, but of being forgotten. Later they almost have sex until they remember, whoops, that’s right, Zak. The implication is that they were meant to be together from the start or something like that, but I don’t even care because it’s all BS at this point, frak it, Starbuck’s a damn angel of all things and IT’S JUST SO FRAKKING STUPID I CAN’T—

Ahem.

The entire fleet lands on Earth, which is nice and verdant instead of nuked to a cinder. Hoshi gives Adama back his Admiral pins and scoots away, because he’s realized that being a main character on this show makes you do or be really stupid things. Turns out Earth is inhabited by prehistoric humans, meaning this is our Earth, where the nuked Earth was Cylon Earth. Not that that clears things up at all.

What’s left of humanity, plus the good Cylons, decide to stay there. But they’re not going to build a city. They’re going to scatter around the globe, acting as super-evolved Jedi Masters to the pre-historic humans and teaching them about language and tools and that sort of thing.

It’s a happy ending, and I like that the characters got that (yes, even Lee). But part of Lee’s whole speech about making a “new start” rubs me the wrong way. It’s the part about passing on the good parts of humanity, not the bad. The bad, in this case, are technology and science. It’s cute and idyllic, but… really? Abandon science and technology? Science and technology are not the bad guys. The way they are used is the bad guy. Will it be impossible to misuse it if it’s not there? Sure. Until generations down the line when humanity evolves again, anyway. But I can’t help imagining Doc Cottle being brought a pneumonia patient and saying “Well, ma’am, I wish I could help you, but some jackasses decided to fly a fleet filled with centuries of advancement in medical technology into the damn sun. Here, have some herbs.”

Romo expresses disbelief that humanity’s willing to leave their “creature comforts” behind, and Lee counters that people are glad to have a new start. After four seasons of everyone and their mother objecting to every single thing the government wants them to do (subtext: The stupid masses don’t know what’s good for them), I’m supposed to believe that no one has an issue with leaving behind such things as blankets and compasses and changes of clothes?

It’s way too convenient an ending. Almost like the writers realized they had only 20 minutes left.

A tearful Starbuck says goodbye to Anders, who musters a brief moment of lucidity after she leaves and says “I’ll see you on the other side.” Then he flies the fleet into the sun. The Cylons have decided to give the Basestar to the Centurions and send them on their merry way. There’s a chance that they might evolve and come back hellbent on vengeance, but Ellen says giving them their freedom will probably be enough to keep that from happening.

There’s another flashback to Adama turning down a desk job because he doesn’t want to have to deal with bureaucratic assholes. I don’t want to deal with this episode anymore.

Roslin’s right at the end of her extended two days of life, so Adama decides to take her up in a Raptor to get a closer look at Earth’s wildlife. She passes away peacefully while he’s talking about the cabin they’re going to build.

Moment of silence for Laura Roslin.

Adama’s excursion also doubles as him permanently going off to be on his own, leaving behind everyone and everything he’s ever known… including his son. Uh-huh. Yes, it was a very tearful goodbye scene between Adama and Lee. But is there any reason Adama couldn’t settle within a few days’ travel of his son? Does he have to go live alone in his cabin of angst and manpain? It’s very contrived. And it’s not even character development when you consider Adama not being there for Lee is kind of his defining characteristic as a father. It’s what all their Adama Llama Drama is based on.

Stupid character ending. Duuuuumb.

Lee and Starbuck say their goodbyes—Starbuck waxes rhapsodic about completing her mission, Lee says he wants to go exploring—before Starbuck literally disappears into thin air. For angel reasons.

We also get a flashback to the aftermath of the GREAT PIGEON BATTLE. And there’s another one of Roslin deciding to help future-President Adar’s campaign. Like I said last episode: People setting off down the paths they were destined for. For Roslin’s that politics. For DRAMA PIGEON (new favorite character), that’s getting away from this mess of an episode.

Athena and Helo walk off into the sunset with their daughter, arguing about who’s going to teach Hera how to hunt. Tigh and Ellen are seen going off together, too. Tyrol…

…wait, do we see Tyrol? There was his shellshocked look after he killed Tory, and then… nothing. Sorry, actor-who-plays-Tyrol. You really got the short end of the stick there.

Head Six and Head Baltar tell Caprica and Baltar that they did what God wanted of them, so now their lives are going to stop with the craziness. We then flash back to their setting-themselves-on-the-path-they-were-destined-for scene: Baltar giving Caprica the codes to get into Caprica’s defense mainframe. He tells her he loves her before backpedalling big-time and playing it cool. In the present day Baltar says he knows a place where they can go and grow some crops, because he knows how do to that and all. CHILDHOOD FARMING KNOWLEDGE TO THE RESCUE.

But there’s still one more Head Six/Head Baltar scene! We flash forward to our present day, 150,000 years after the Galactica arrived on Earth. The pair of hallucinations/angels/not like it matters anyway because we still don’t know anything more about them weave through a bustling Times Square talking about God’s plan, how all of this (robopocalypse, etc.) has happened before but it doesn’t have to happen again, because if a system’s repeated enough some variable, somewhere, is going to change. That, too, is in God’s plan. Baltar remarks that “it” doesn’t like the name God. We also find out that Hera would go on to become “mitochondrial Eve,” or the common ancestor of all of humanity. We end with a montage of robots paired with the sounds of “All Along the Watchtower” and my anguished screaming because that’s it? That’s it?!

General Thoughts/Ranting

Things were looking pretty good in parts one and two. And then part three, the very last episode… wow. What a cop-out. Nothing got explained! Like there being fricking angels of a sudden! And the second Earth. How are there two Earths? Why are there two Earths? What’s so important about getting humanity and Cylons to (our) Earth? I was very careful about trying to avoid spoilers, and I don’t regret doing that, but part of me wishes I’d known in advance that “God did it!” was all we were going to get in terms of an explanation for the coincidences, prophecies, and sometimes hamfisted metaphors I’d fondly eyeroll at (never forget) over the course of the show. Instead of taking those things at face value, I expected—reasonably, I believe—that the writers would actually have something good up their sleeves instead of the nonsensical, quasi-religious mess we got.

I mean, one of the implications of the finale was that whatever higher power is in charge engineered the entire plot of the show, INCLUDING THE DEATHS OF BILLIONS OF PEOPLE ON THE 12 COLONIES AND ORIGINAL EARTH, to get humans and Cylons to our Earth and kickstart evolution there…for some reason. Because all this has happened before and all this has happened again? But that’s meaningless.

It’s frakked up.

There are things about Daybreak that I do like. I like that there was an actual ending, even if said ending was hellaciously dumb. I really like the Galactica divebombing into the colony. But taken as a whole? What a mess. I don’t ask for every little loose end to be tied up, and I don’t need to be spoon-fed. But it’s just plain bad writing to introduce huge plot elements, bathe your viewers in the shock value of them, and then not actually put in the effort of constructing a story around them so they make any sort of damn sense. What is this, Lost? After three and a half seasons of excellent finales, I expected better. Did the chuckleheads responsible for this even have a plan?

Ah, screw it. I’m opening this mother up to comments. Tell me I’m crazy about the finale. Or agree with me. Let’s go wild! I also welcome any general comments about my recaps, positive or negative, though if it’s the latter I ask that you keep it civil, please, because I’m a person with feelings. Wanna gush about Romo Lampkin? I’m here for that. Wanna cry about Gaeta? You know I’m down. I just ask that you please refrain from posting spoilers about The Plan and Blood and Chrome, since those are the subject of my very, very last Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recap, to be posted next week.

It’s almost over.

Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here. Have a comment? Hit me up on Twitter.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 (and a little bit 2014) is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

In which everyone looks like they’re babies (Gaeta! *sobs*), Simon finally gets stuff to do, and Cavil is a cartoon character.

The Plan

LET’S DO THIS.

The Plan shows us the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica from the POV of the Cylons, and in it we find out who Brother Cavil’s cartoon doppelgänger is:

Hear me out. We already knew that the Cylons, by all rights, should have been able to defeat the show’s ragtag band of humans fairly handily. They’re stronger. They’re dedicated. They have the resources. What we realize in The Plan is just how bad Cavil, their leader, was at making that happen. He thought he’d be able to wipe humanity out in one fell swoop. But a few ships got away, so he has to keep trying to kill the rest of ‘em, only his plans JUST. KEEP. FAILING. A large reason for that is something that’s beyond his control: His fellow Cylons falling in love with humans. But Cavil doesn’t adapt. He’s stupidly stubborn, and by refusing the deviate from his original tactics he keeps letting humanity defeat him.

Battlestar Galactica‘s Big Bad is Elmer Fudd in space. Sorry if you can’t unsee that.

We start off with two Cavils—I’ll call the main one just plain Cavil and the one who infiltrated Anders’ resistance Caprica Cavil—having a chit-chat right before they get airlocked in the season two finale. Caprica Cavil thinks it was a mistake to nuke the colonies. Cavil disagrees. As we delve into flashbacks, we find out how those characters came to diverge.

It’s two weeks before the attack, and Cavil’s monologuing (well, talking to another version of himself, but that counts, right?) about how he’s going to resurrect the Final Five among the pain and suffering of humankind, so when they come back into the Cylon fold they’ll realize how right Cavil was to light up the colonies. I’m sorry, but I’m distracted by how even in the Resurrection tank Ellen has perfect eyeshadow. We know that Cavil’s plan won’t work, that their time among humanity will make the Final Five more human, rather than less. Shocker. But Cavil’s absolutely convinced that by putting the Final Five through hell he’ll make them realize how great he is.

Cavil goes to the surface to meet with Caprica, who’s just gotten the defense mainframe codes from Baltar, and from there heads to Picon to chat with Ellen. She starts flirting big-time, which is more than a bit weird since in one sense she’s his mother (the Final Five created the skinjobs), and in another sense she’s his daughter (she modeled him after her dad). Welp, I guess it’s only fair to get Oedipal in a show that’s so Greek mythology-heavy. He initiates a conversation about philosophy with this drunk stranger (she doesn’t know him, anyway), and look, I know Cavil’s not supposed to be a comic figure, but he is cracking me up here. He’s just floundering so hard trying to get everyone to agree with him about humanity should be killed, and it’s so not working. Not only does Ellen tell Cavil there’s no point in judging people, she also gleefully explains that in all the years she’s been alive she hasn’t let anyone change her. She hasn’t learned anything—her words.

Cavil’s half a step away from saying “Apersonwhothinkshumanitydesesrvestobekilledsayswhat?”

So Ellen’s at a bar with Cavil when the nukes hit, Tory’s driving somewhere, Tigh and Tyrol are on the Galactica, and Anders is up in training camp. With him is a Simon, who’s infiltrated his team as a medic. We get brief shots of the Galactica as the colonies get nuked, and they’re important to me because

GAETA

IS

THERE

And he’s not even doing anything, just delivering normal CIC expository dialogue, but dammit, I was not prepared to see my wonderful frak-up back in the land of the living, if only in a flashback. Someone take this pain away from me.

There’s also a quick scene of Cylons up on the Basestar talking about how great it is that the Final Five will finally come around to their way of thinking. And Lucy Lawless is there. She has like one line and then never shows up again. Why do you do this to me?!

Cavil picks Ellen up from the rubble on Picon and proceeds to rescue her, explaining that she still has so much more suffering to experience. I love the idea of this incompetent bad guy who tries so hard to be evil and ruin the day, but all he ever does is accidentally save people.

He stays by her side as she recovers, speechifying about how it’s cruel to keep her alive but also necessary, since she hasn’t yet realized how evil humanity is. Dude, I know she’s in and out of consciousness and therefore isn’t picking up on what you’re saying, but stop it with the Bond villain monologuing, for frak’s sake. There are people around! What are you doing?!

Exhibit—what are we up to, J?—for how incompetent a villain Cavil is: Disguising himself as a chaplain, he asks for permission to post flyers offering free religious counseling and spiritual guidance. The flyer reads “DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE PLAN?,” which is a remarkably subtle way of saying “Hey, fellow Cylons onboard this ship, come meet with me and we’ll talk about our dastardly deeds.” It does get the gang together: There’s Cavil, two Sixes, a Doral, and a Leoben. They all chat about how they can take down the Galactica while still remaining undetected, and Cavil mentions that he has a sleeper agent (Boomer) whose help he can enlist.

But for goodness’ sake, what if a human actually wanted to see a priest and walked in midway through a spirited discussion on how to take out the Galactica?! “Uh, sorry, my whole family just died and I wanted… uh… I’m gonna go.”

One Cylon is missing from the meeting: A Simon (I’ll call him Galactica Simon to differentiate him from the one with Anders). During the attack on the Colonies we saw him carrying around a little girl, and it turns out she’s his stepdaughter. See, Galactica Simon is married to a woman named Gianna, who’s recently become one of Tyrols’ deckhands. He’s in looooove. He even has a family.

Cavil gives one of the Sixes and Doral their assignments—posing as a journalist to discredit Gaius and being a suicide bomber, respectively—and they take to them with only minor reservations. Six wonders if maybe they should ease up on Gaius since he helped them so much, and Doral objects to Cavil giving him dirty work because of how he goofed up and got exposed in the miniseries. (He also doesn’t want to blow up his clothes. He doesn’t say that, but look me in the eye and tell me he’s not thinking it.)

Boomer’s job, as relayed to her when Cavil brings her out of her I-think-I’m-human fugue state with the use of a handy elephant statue, is to blow up the Galactica’s water tanks. She doesn’t want to do it, and even starts talking about how they should let the humans go because they’re not a threat. Leoben’s tasked with tapping into the Galactica’s radio transmissions. When he does he hears Starbuck running a training mission. Galactica Simon’s job is to prove his loyalty to Cavil by blowing up the ship he lives on. In the end he refuses to do it, opting instead to airlock himself. And since he’s out of resurrection range, doing so means he’s well and truly dead.

Now Simon gets a personality! Now he actually gets to do things aside from deliver expository dialogue. One of the major themes of this episode is that Cavil, by not being open to love, is the odd man out among his species. (Aside from Doral. Doral don’t care.) Leoben gets fixated on Starbuck. We see one of the Sixes be sympathetic to Baltar. Boomer has Tyrol, and she also loves Adama like a father. Simon has his human family. But Galactica Simon’s more than just a plot device here; we see him object to waging war against humans in general, because he’s a medic (as all versions of him are) and he doesn’t want to get involved in the destruction. Hell, the Simon on Caprica makes sex puns later on. You could’ve been my favorite! Why weren’t you given anything to work with during the actual show?!

The fact that Simon, the only black male on the show (and one of a relatively small number of people of color), only gets a personality now, after it’s off the air… well, it’s several steps up from Harry Potter only getting a canon gay character after the books ended, I’ll give it that. But still.

So Cavil wants to kill humanity, but he keeps getting foiled by his underlings’ feelings. Boomer shot Adama, but she easily could’ve popped him in the head and killed him. Leoben’s obsession with Starbuck got him captured and airlocked. The Six who was supposed to discredit Baltar failed and blew the other Six’s cover in the process. Simon wouldn’t blow up the ship out of love for his family. .

The ironic thing is that for all Cavil hates human things like emotion, he’s perhaps ruled by them more than any other Cylon. They’re just negative ones like anger, bitterness, and stubbornness, instead of positive one like love. Part of him knows that, and resents it, which is just another trap. He also craves love, which is something Caprica Cavil comes to realize. Cavil doesn’t just want the Final Five to admit he was right. He doesn’t just want their approval. He wants them to love the Cylons more than they love humans.

There’s a subplot where a little boy keeps sleeping in Cavil’s chapel. He still has parents, but they abandoned him, which set off Cavil’s Major Issues alarm. He sees himself in this child. The kid’s name is even John, which is what Cavil’s real name is! Eventually Cavil stops shooing him away and they start to get companionable, which is when Cavil kills him, because A) he wants to kill the human part of himself and B) kick the dog trope, but with a kid. Gotta be eeeeevil.

Now let’s catch up with Caprica Cavil. Anders has assumed his role as resistance leader, though he’s been dealing with the requisite I’ve-been-leading-people-to-their-deaths! angst. There’s a sequence where someone makes a grenade out of a pyramid ball, and that’s cool, if a little goofy. The resistance comes upon a group of Dorals and figures out about skinjobs, and in the ensuing firefight Caprica Cavil infiltrates their group.

One of the first things he does is oh-so-subtly try to get Anders around to his way of thinking, telling him that that maybe the Cylons have assumed the role of God and punished man for their sins, doncha think? Anders, unsurprisingly, doesn’t agree, and treats Caprica Cavil like he’s a harmless old conspiracy nut.

When Caprica Cavil gets back to the resistance base he meets up with Simon, who assumes he’ll call in some backup and wipe out the resistance ASAP. Only Caprica Cavil doesn’t do that, because he’s obsessed with taking Anders’ confession and finding out whether his attempt to make Anders suffer by forcing him to live among humans actually worked. In the few months Caprica Cavil stays with the resistance Starbuck comes and goes, and seeing Anders fall in love with her has an impact on his previously unshakable conviction that the attack was the right thing to do. But still, when hearing Anders’ confession, he makes one last ditch attempt to see if Anders might believe otherwise:

CC: So I know the nuclear attack was terrible and all.

CC: But one could argue that it was a learning experience for you. Silver linings!

CC: And anyway, I’m sure the Cylons had their reasons. There sure was a lot of sinning among humanity. They, I mean we, kind of suck when you get right down to it.

CC: I’m just spitballing here, but maaaaaaybe the Cylons made the right call?

CC:

CC:

CC: Dad? Love me?

Anders, who has been and always will be a straight-up good guy, tells Caprica Cavil he’s just gonna pretend he didn’t hear the BS that just came out of his mouth. Later Caprica Cavil asks why Anders still cares about people after they’re dead, and Anders responds that love doesn’t die when people do.

Around that time is when Starbuck shows back up to rescue the resistance. Cavil sneaks away and finds out that the Cylons voted for a truce with the humans. Even though his model voted against it, he tells Caprica that he’s come around and wants to take the message to the Galactica. So he does. Both Cavils—one who thinks the genocide was wrong, one who’s come not to—get airlocked. Before they die, Caprica Cavil explains to Galactica Cavil that he understands now that all they ever really wanted to be loved. Galactica Cavil doesn’t buy it and retains the pissy little “Grrrr, I’m so angry that the Final Five don’t like us more than they like the humans, grrrrr” attitude he has through the rest of the series.

Now. Blood and Chrome. I’m gonna be honest with you; I had a brain fart and didn’t realize that it’s a movie and not a webseries. (Though apparently it’s both, but whatever, the webseries was removed from YouTube). And I’m a little burned out right now and not 100% sure I want to recap a 90-minute movie instead of a 25-minute webseries. Anyone want me to recap Blood and Chrome? Is it worth it? If I don’t end up doing it, and this is my last BSG recap, let me just say that it’s been a gas, and thanks to everyone who’s read ‘em. SO SAY WE ALL.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

So now that humanity’s escaped from New Caprica everything’s good for them now, right? No trouble? Two full episodes of people drinking fruity cocktails and playing Yahtzee?

Collaborators

Poor Jammer. We barely knew ye.

The episode starts with our favorite insurgent-turned-NCP officer (OK, our only insurgent-turned-NCP officer) being tried and executed for treason and crimes against humanity for his role in helping the Cylons on New Caprica. The ones doing the judging are a group of six calling themselves the Circle: Tigh, Anders, Tyrol, Jean, some random lady, and guy named Connor whose young son was killed during an NCP raid on a temple.

Jammer protests that he was trying to help people and explains to Tyrol that he cut Cally loose when she was about to be executed. Tyrol and Anders are clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing, and so am I—Jammer’s been bound, gagged, and dragged into an empty, ominous-looking airlock. It doesn’t exactly look like an official trial.

Later Tyrol goes and asks Cally, hey, by the way, did an NCP officer try to save your life down on New Caprica or anything? She confirms that someone did, but it’s too late for Jammer, who’s already been airlocked.

The next scene is Adama and Roslin forgiving Baltar for surrendering to the Cylons: There was nothing else he could’ve done, they say, and anyway, all that messiness with betraying humanity is behind them. I smell something fishy. Head Six shows up and berates Roslin and Adama for their leniency and tells Baltar not to make her angry… and it’s when Adama responds “You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry” that we realize this has to be a dream.

I don’t know what’s funnier: That even in Baltar’s dreams Head Six scolds him, or that Baltar’s unconscious comes up with Adama quoting The Incredible Hulk.

No, wait, it’s totally the Hulk one.

Roslin then kisses Baltar, which is a little weird, to put it mildly. The earlier part of the dream showed us Baltar’s subconscious need to be forgiven, but I think the Baltar/Roslin kiss was there just to freak me out. Baltar wakes up in a very sci-fi room aboard a Cylon Basestar, where he’s being kept prisoner.

From there we meet up with the real Roslin, who’s planning a game of Presidential Musical Chairs with Zarek. With Baltar gone he’s the President now, but only temporarily: He’ll nominate Roslin as his Vice President, and once that’s gone through he’ll step down. That’s Roslin’s cue to say “Hey, you know who would make a great Vice President? Tom Zarek!” The two of them seem to be getting along pretty well at this point, though there is some residual tension from him being… y’know… a manipulative terrorist.

Then we get to my second favorite character, Felix “Let me ruffle your hair” Gaeta (sorry, Tigh). Back in civilian clothes after the whole “Being Gaius Baltar’s Chief of Staff” thing, he walks into the CIC to do Adama a solid by helping repair the communications system. Tigh goes off on the poor guy, accusing him of being a traitor and asking him, if he was so friendly with the Cylons, whether he knows where Tigh’s missing eye is. Dude, really? Harsh. Harsh and crazy.

Luckily for Gaeta, Adama agrees: He pulls Tigh aside and tells him he needs to pull himself together. Tigh says he is together, thank you very much, and other people may be willing to forget what happened down on New Caprica, but he isn’t.

I really feel for him this episode. Not to excuse the fact that he’s being a crazy jerk, flying off the handle at Gaeta and being perfectly OK with executing people. But he was tortured on New Caprica. His eye was plucked out. And he killed his wife for being forced to collaborate with the enemy; if they don’t punish people who collaborated of their own free will, that would mean, in his mind at least, that Ellen died for no reason. And it’s not like he wasn’t traipsing along the edge of the deep end even before that happened. He’s a wonderfully complex character.

Ignoring Adama’s demand that he rest, Tigh instead meets back up with the Circle to examine evidence of accused collaborators and, more likely than not, find them guilty and sentence them to death. Connor’s particularly into it, and Tigh yells at him that they’re reasonable people serving out justice, not hotheads set on vengeance, dangit. Just a suggestion, Tigh: If you want to impress upon people how balanced you are, slamming someone’s head against the table isn’t really the way to go.

The next person to be tried is Gaeta. Noooo. Anders defends him, saying that even if he worked for Baltar there’s no hard evidence that he did anything bad himself. Tigh takes the exact opposite viewpoint: Baltar didn’t actually run things, so Gaeta must’ve been the one ordering executions and all that. Excuse you, Tigh. Gaeta?! He was an idealist with a mancrush on Baltar, not a moustache-twirling evil villain sending people off to be tied to the train tracks. Tyrol counters that there’s no proof that Gaeta was running anything (yeah, ’cause it’s a stupid suggestion!), but then a list comes up indicating that Gaeta saw the death list Cally was on. He didn’t do anything about it (but he did! He gave it to the resistance!), therefore me must be guilty.

Anders is the smart one here, saying they don’t know when Gaeta saw that list or what he did or didn’t do afterwards. But then he turns not-so-smart, saying he’s done with the whole thing and peaceing out. Um, Anders. Maybe you should quit after you vote not guilty? They need six votes, and with Anders gone they only have five. For their new jury member you can be darn sure they’re going to find someone who’s predisposed to bringing the hammer down on supposed traitors.

That person, as it turns out, is Starbuck. Gaeta’s eating alone in the mess hall when she sits down at his table, except instead of being all comradely she rakes him across the coals for doing Baltar’s dirty work and never bothering to think about his former friends, i.e. her. Starbuck, nooooo. To be fair, she has no way of knowing Gaeta was passing information to the insurgents… until he straight up tells her about it. Starbuck doesn’t believe him, nor does Jean, who overhears the entire conversation and then (presumably) is the one to invite her to serve on the Circle.

Now that they’re back up to six members they can decide Gaeta’s fate. I wanted to absolutely scream during this scene, because neither Starbuck nor Jean tell the rest of the jury about Gaeta claiming to be a spy for the insurgency despite the fact that that’s kind of relevant information. Also Tyrol keeps repeating that they don’t know what Gaeta did when he saw the list. You could, I don’t know, ask him?! Everyone except Tyrol finds Gaeta guilty, and then Tyrol gets badgered into making the same call.

I want to punch so many people.

After the vote Anders comes to see Starbuck aside and calls her on sentencing people to death to make her feel better about what she went through. Their relationship’s gone downhill since New Caprica. An earlier scene saw Starbuck rejecting his physical advances, and now Starbuck says she can’t be with him anymore because she’s changed, and every time he looks at her she wants to tear his eyes out. She wants to hurt someone, and he needs to go before that someone becomes him.

Are they… are they actually addressing Starbuck’s PTSD from having been kidnapped and held prisoner for four months, during which time she was severely emotionally abused? You go, BSG! So many shows will put characters through the wringer for dramatic effect and then just forget that real people usually won’t have bounced back during the summer hiatus.

The Circle kidnaps Gaeta and informs him that he’s going to be killed, but oh-so-helpfully explains that he can always try and convince them of his innocence first. Gaeta refuses on the grounds that he already explained that he was a mole—he told Starbuck, after all, and here she is on the jury, so they must know—and he’s not going to beg for his life.

Screeeeeech.

At first I wanted to scream at Gaeta for not having told anyone before all this—his old friends and coworkers all hate him, and mentioning that he was risking his life for the insurgency every single day would go a long way toward not being a pariah. But then I realized he doesn’t want to be forgiven, because he still hates himself for having been taken in by Baltar. And as if that’s not enough, Gaeta thinks Tyrol, his friend, knows about him being the mole and still thinks he deserves to die.

Stop this show, I want to get off.

(Side note: I want all the Gaeta-centric fanfic, but I can’t go a’hunting for it without being spoiled. This is why I hate watching shows late.)

Gaeta’s about to die, and he even appears to have accepted his death (because he thinks he deserves it. I hate this show)… but it doesn’t happen, because Starbuck kicks him and starts screaming that “Ohhhh, you’re not going to lie about how helpful you were with your information and your stupid yellow dog bowl, huh?” Hearing that, Tyrol realizes that Gaeta was the source and cuts his bonds. Horrified at what they almost did, he tells the other jurors that Gaeta’s the only reason they knew about the death lists in the first place, and if it weren’t for him humanity never would have escaped New Caprica.

I have a theory, and it may very well hogwash, but here goes: Starbuck totally knew what she was doing when she was yelling about Gaeta claiming to be the mole. In her mind Gaeta was probably lying, but what if he wasn’t? Then his death would be on her shoulders, since she’s the one who didn’t pass the information on to the jury. Starbuck may be messed up, but she doesn’t want to be responsible for the death of an innocent friend. She couldn’t just come out and say “Holy crap, I forgot, Gaeta said he was an informant, maybe that’s relevant?,” because that would be admitting her mistake, and in Starbuck’s mind she’s the only one who’s allowed to hate herself. (And boy howdy, does she ever.) In a roundabout way, she intentionally saved Gaeta’s life.

There. Watch me get Jossed.

In an earlier scene we found out that Lee and Adama were aware, not of what the Circle’s been doing, but that people known to have survived the exodus from New Caprica have started disappearing. After Gaeta’s near-execution the rest of it comes to light. Adama, Lee, and Roslin are none too pleased with President Zarek, who gave the Circle the go-ahead and has been providing them with signed death warrants for whomever they deem guilty. Zarek explains that it’s all perfectly legal and that by facilitating the hush-hush executions of traitors (or “traitors”) now he’s making it so Roslin doesn’t have to deal with long, drawn-out trials during her Presidency. Sure, Zarek. You were doing this all to help Roslin. Sure. Roslin objects, arguing that everyone deserves a trial by representation and that, while said trials may very well turn into media circuses that consume her second term, they will also provide justice.

She later changes her mind, at least about going through with trials: In her post-inauguration press conference she announces a general pardon for every human in the fleet to help facilitate healing and reconciliation instead of vengeance. You go, Roslin.

If Baltar knew about that, I’m guessing he’d wish he were on the Galactica instead of hanging out with the Cylons. See, while the Circle has been trying collaborators, the Cylons have been deciding what to do with Baltar. D’anna helpfully lets him know that the vote on whether to allow him to stay is deadlocked—three models want him there, three don’t. The decision rests with the Sixes. Then, in a later scene, Caprica comes in and tells her one-time guyfriend that her feelings for him made her lose sight of who she really is: Not a human, but a Cylon. Baltar, trying once more to save his skin, objects. At the end of the episode a close-mouthed Caprica returns to his room with a nice white shirt, implying that the decision has been made.

But what’s the decision? When I saw that scene I assume Caprica had voted against him and he was going to die, but I’m pretty sure the Cylons never actually said the decision was whether to kill him or not, just whether to “let him stay.” I see no reason why they’d let him live, but I’m pretty sure the writers wouldn’t kill him at this point. And hey, maybe Caprica voted for him. Sure, she was all quiet and ominous in that last scene, but you never know.

Torn

Last episode’s first scene gave us an execution, and this one gives us some eye candy. Hey-o. A bikini-clad Head Six is lounging on the shores of Baltar’s subconscious (see, because she’s on a shore, but she’s also in Baltar’s head. I kill myself sometimes), where she tells him to take advantage of his time on the Basestar to find out as much about the Cylons as he can, specifically this little thing called projection. Baltar asks her what she is, and she—predictably—refuses to answer. The latter part of this scene has both of their faces artistically obscured by lensflare, which is wonderfully fitting: Her real identity is uncertain, and throughout this episode his will be, too. I can feel my inner cinematography nerd smiling.

After his mental siesta Baltar finds himself back in his room on the Basestar, where he’s paid a visit by D’anna and Caprica. They want to know if he can tell them how to get to Earth, and he says no. Ohhh, what a pity, they say, because we really wanted to have a reason to keep you alive for a little longer. Oh well!

Wait, says Baltar! I may not know exactly where Earth is, but I spent quite a while comparing the map Roslin and Adama found on Kobol to astrometric charts, so if anyone could find it, it’d be me. Please don’t kill me.

Baltar is so predictable. I have a headcanon that D’anna and Caprica sit around and gossip about things they’ve psychologically manipulated him into doing. “The other day I mentioned that Cylons take a critical eye toward poor diets and he totally gave me his slice of cake!” “That’s nothing. Yesterday I told him the Cylon god really likes Pig Latin, and he was eaking-spay it-yay for hours.”

Turns out the Cylons want to find Earth because they’re looking to settle there. Get your own planet, toasters! Geez.

Back on the Galactica the Vipers are engaged in a training exercise that Starbuck proceeds to mess up when she disobeys orders, bangs her Viper into Kat’s, and lets her ship run out of fuel. Back on the ship Lee berates her for her reckless move, saying it’s fine if she wants to die but he’ll be damned if she’s going to take a ship with her. When Starbuck is less than apologetic, Lee revokes her flight status.

Both Starbuck and Tigh are still majorly messed up by their experiences on New Caprica. While drinking in his room Tigh hears Ellen’s voice, and when he looks outside to investigate he sees someone he thinks is her but is actually just some other lady in a Pepto Bismol pink suit. Starbuck, meanwhile, gets a visit from Kacey and her mom Julia, who are living on a refugee camp on the Galactica. She wastes no time in telling them to buzz off, because she doesn’t want to be Kacey’s friend and it’d be bad for Kacey to be around her, too.

Their respective capital-i Issues established, the two of them both make their way to the pilots’ rec room, where they proceed to smack talk everyone who was fortunate enough not to have been on New Caprica. One of those people is Kat. She doesn’t let Starbuck get away with any of that bull, pointing out that coming up with a rescue plan wasn’t exactly easy and that pilots died pulling it off. Tigh and Starbuck are having none of it, though: If you weren’t on New Caprica, you can’t be trusted.

So the two of them are BFFs now. Is the apocalypse nigh?

Helo, in a meeting with Adama, lets the old man know that Tigh and Starbuck are second-guessing the rescue and ruining morale. Adama says both of them know better, and Helo responds that he doesn’t think they care. Determined to snap them out of it, Adama marches to the rec room and tells everyone else to GTFO. He asks Starbuck for her gun and suggests that one of them just go ahead and shoot him if they feel like it. (They don’t, of course. Head Six doesn’t have the monopoly on dramatics in this show.)

Adama gives each of them an ultimatum. To Starbuck: She can shape up and stop sowing discontent among the crew, or she can find another ship to live on. Tigh’s deal is slightly more lenient: He can go back to his quarters and not leave until he’s gotten himself together and is ready to be the man Adama’s known for 30 years.

Starbuck, after storming out, decides to accept Adama’s offer: She cuts her hair off, albeit with a giant knife, because Starbuck. Tigh’s not so receptive, saying the man Adama used to know doesn’t exist anymore. (♪Now I’m just some officer you used to know.♪)

I don’t know, Adama, I think maybe your ultimatum didn’t work because you literally sent Tigh to his room. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s not gonna work, though honestly I don’t know what would. While Starbuck puts on her big girl panties and goes to visit Kacey, Tigh stays in his room, drinks up a storm, and looks at an old picture of him and Ellen. He legitimately looks like he’s about to cry. There’s a lip tremble there. A lip. tremble.

It’s not been wall-to-wall Tigh ‘n’ Starbuck drama this episode. Gaeta’s been doing SCIENCE, you see. He’s been given the task of deciphering Baltar’s notes on the search for Earth and thinks he’s managed to find something of a landmark: A nebula shaped like a lion’s head that, because SCIENCE, looks like it has a blinking red and blue eye. Roslin expresses doubts that Baltar’s research is legit, but Gaeta points out that the one thing Baltar can always be trusted to do is look after himself. He wanted to find Earth so he could get there. With no other leads, Roslin and Adama decide to send a Raptor, piloted by Racetrack and Athena, to check out the nebula.

Back on the Basetar HQ Baltar has shared that same intel with the Cylons, who’ve sent a ship to investigate. Baltar and Caprica talk about his relative trustworthiness while striding around the halls of the ship, and Baltar remarks that it seems like they’re going around in circles. Of course it does, responds Caprica, since you, as a human, are incapable of projecting. Baltar’s ears perk up, and he asks her to elaborate.

Projection, she explains, means that the Cylons can see their surroundings however they want. For example, Baltar sees them walking through a ship, but she sees them walking through a forest. Back in his headspace Baltar remarks that it’s quite a coincidence that Cylon projection is so similar to the way he constructs his own vivid mental realities. “It is a coincidence?,” Head Six asks, ramping the manipulation up to eleven.

Inception: done. From then on Baltar thinks he might be a Cylon. He quizzes Caprica on how there are twelve skinjob models but he’s only ever seen seven of them: Who are the other five? Would she know one if she saw it? Caprica refuses to answer, saying that none of them ever talk about the final five.

Oh, Baltar, for goodness sake, you’re not a Cylon! For one thing, it’s never been made clear that it’s Baltar’s brainpower that’s creating mental dreamscapes. I just assumed it was Head Six. And Batttlestar Galactica is too good at storytelling to introduce that critical bit of information only when it becomes relevant to the plot. Plus there’s no damn way Head Six just ~happened~ to suggest Baltar look into projection right before Caprica just ~happened~ to mention it for the first time. Head Six made him think he might be a Cylon the same way Brother Cavil made Tyrol think he might be a Cylon. She’s playing to his vanity, too, the way he’s so sure of his own genius his first assumption upon finding out about projection would be that he managed to do it without even knowing it was a thing that could be done.

Congrats on your red herring, show.

Their little tête-à-tête about Cylonitude is interrupted by D’anna striding past and announcing there’s been a problem with the Basestar sent to investigate the lion’s head nebula. They make their way to the Cylon equivalent of a CIC, where all the assembled skinjobs figure out that their brethren have been infected by some mysterious disease. They can’t send Centurions to investigate, since those will probably be damaged, too, and they have to move the Resurrection ship away lest one of the dying Cylons downloads into a new body and infects their entire race.

Head Six urges Baltar to volunteer to check out the plague ship. He initially resists, but she points out that if he’s human he won’t catch the disease, and if he’s a Cylon… well, wouldn’t he rather die now? Baltar offers his services, surprising the other skinjobs, and after a short bit of convincing they agree to let him go.

When he gets to the Basestar he sees dozens of dead or dying Cylons, plus a weird mechanical device that’s clearly man-made. He’s halted in his examination by a brunette version of Six, the only conscious Cylon he sees. She tells him that the device was floating in the nebula when they got there and that it must’ve been left by the original members of the 13th Colony as a beacon or marker. Baltar reassures her that he’s here to help, but the disease appears to have gotten to her brain… though whether that’s in a crazy-making way or a psychic-making way is subject to interpretation. She starts ranting about how he left the marker, knowing that it would kill them, and that he intends to lure in all the other Baseships and wipe out the entire Cylon race. He fails to keep his cool, yelling at her to shut up—which I probably would do in his case, too, if the clone of a Cylon who has a history of knowing things she shouldn’t started yelling about how I was planning to betray everyone. I’d like to think I wouldn’t strangle Brunette Six to death, though, which is what Baltar does.

He heads back to the ship, where the Cylons are arguing about whether to try and save the infected Cylons or leave them to die. After a short but intense burst of bickering D’anna decides the risk of a fleet-wide infection is too great and orders the Basestar to jump. Baltar, under some suspicion because he was the one who suggested they go to the nebula in the first place, lies his butt off and says he didn’t notice anything weird on the ship.

Why did he do that? Telling them about the device would take at least some suspicion off him. If he had been working with the Galactica to plant a Cylon-specific biological weapon, he wouldn’t admit that that weapon was there. Having realized his life is in very real danger he’s started up again with his old Baltar-y tricks, withholding information so can hopefully save his bacon somewhere down the line. Except now he’s playing the game against Cylons, not other humans, and as such it’s much riskier. I like where this is going.

Of course, there’s a minor hiccup when Caprica looks at the photos Baltar took and sees the weird plague bomb, but hey, this wouldn’t be Battlestar Galactica if things were easy.

The episode ends with Athena and Racetrack getting to the nebula and seeing that it does indeed look like a lion’s head with a blinking eye. Their joy at making progress toward finding Earth is cut short when they see a ton of Cylon Raiders and Basestars milling around. Racetrack quite reasonably suggests that they get the frak out of there, but Athena appears to be frozen in place, able only to utter a cryptic message: “When God’s anger awakens, even the mighty shall fall.”

And with that…

TO BE CONTINUED.

Also In This Episode

• Au revoit, fatsuit!Lee. There’s a quick scene of him post-workout asking Helo to remind him “to never let that happen again. Ever.” The sentiment is shared.
• The pilot-formerly-known-as-Sharon (whom I’ve been calling Athena) officially starts being called Athena this episode. Whew. It’s just her callsign. Part of me was worried that she’d turn out to be the incarnation of a Greek god or something. (Oh, who’m I kidding, I’d have loved that.)
• Via Baltar, we get introduced to a new type of character: The Hybrid, a form of questionably-sane Cylon that serves as a sort of living computer for the Basestars.

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I’m a sci-fi geek who has never seen Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I know, I know. 2013 is the year I change that, and I’m blogging as I go.

One great episode. One, eh… not so much.

A Measure of Salvation

We start this 44 minutes of sci-fi pain with a team of pilots, led by Lee, investigating the dead Basestar Racetrack and Athena found at the lion’s head nebula. After a bit of exploring they find a room of skinjobs, most of them dead but five of them only mostly dead. One of them, a Six, tells Athena that they were infected by that weird beacon. Understandably, the information that they’re on a plague ship sends the pilots into a panic. Unbeknownst to them, but knownst to us, all of them are immune… except for Athena.

Back on the Galactica it’s decided that all of the good guys will be put under quarantine while Doc Cottle runs some bloodwork. The dying Cylons will be brought aboard and kept in the brig so the good Doc can examine them as well. “When they die,” he says, “I’ll know how long our prisoners have to live.” Wow, no bones about it, huh Doc?

Speaking of bones, I want Doc Cottle and Bones from Star Trek to have a show where they go around curing diseases and being gruff at people. Please tell me someone’s at least drawn some crossover fanart of them.

It’s not that long before Doc Cottle figures out that humans are immune from whatever disease the Cylons are infected with, so everyone’s free to go. Everyone except Athena, that is. Not because she’s infected, but because the Doc hasn’t had time to test her yet. That causes Helo to go off on his first “Everyone’s prejudiced against my girlfriend!” rant of the episode. Calm it down, dude. You don’t want to take the Moral Superiority crown from Lee. He’s worked too hard for it.

(I would like to point out the dude in the background who got really enthusiastic upon being told of his clean bill of health. I think I have a favorite extra.)

Baltar, meanwhile, is in a tough spot: Caprica told D’anna that he lied about not having seen anything suspicious aboard the infected Baseship, so now the Cylons are convinced he’s guilty of working with the Galactica to infect them. Baltar tries to explain that he didn’t tell them because he thought if they knew about the beacon they’d accuse him of betrayal. He even goes so far as to rock some major puppy dog eyes. But it’s all to no avail: D’anna says they think he knows something about the virus, and they intend to find out what that is.

Cue the torture.

D’anna has Baltar strapped to a chair, his fingers attached to nodes that activate the pain centers in his brain. Caprica’s clearly very upset by the whole thing, and D’anna sends her a distinctly “judging you” sort of look. Head Six, still in Baltar’s beach headspace, is doing her best to guide Baltar through it, telling him that he can interpret neural impulses in a way that’s not painful. But that’s easier said that done, so to help him out she… has sex with him.

Wow. A torture scene that’s also a sex scene. Battlestar Galactica went there.

There’s context, of course. Head Six tells Baltar that it’s human nature to separate the mind from the body. So if he keeps his body, where the pain is, with her to get sexed up, he can send his mind back to the Basestar and come up with a way to psychologically manipulate D’anna. Baltar says he can’t, that the pain’s too much. During a break from the torture he tries to convince D’anna of his innocence by telling her that him finding the beacon was just a coincidence. But that’s not enough for her: She says everything happens according to God’s will and starts back in on the torture.

And now for some theology.

If God exists then our knowledge of him must be imperfect, because our stories are filtered through human experience, Baltar says to D’anna. You claim to have absolute faith in God, but you can’t help but ask yourself why he allows death and destruction to occur. I can see that you’re conflicted about your beliefs, so let me help you reconcile faith with fact.

That only makes D’anna angry, causing her to ramp up the torture, so Head Six tells Baltar, out of his mind because of torture and sex, some things to say to her: “Don’t stop! I want you to believe in me! You’re all I have left. I believe in you.”

At first D’anna is all “What in the hell?,” as a guy screaming “Don’t stop!” while you torture him will tend to do. But eventually she backs off and looks like something profound has just happened. Baltar tells Head Six—and, back on the Basestar, D’anna—that he loves her with all his heart. D’anna, seemingly smitten, caresses his mouth.

So. That was intense.

But not so intense that it kept me from thinking about the idea of Baltar spouting Intro to Atheism philosophy as pillow talk. Hey, it’s funny.

Back on the Galactica Doc Cottle has figured out both what the infection is—lymphocytic encephalitis, which humans developed an immunity to hundreds of years ago—and how to keep the Cylons from dying. It’s not a cure, though: They’ll have to receive regular injections of the vaccine or they’ll relapse. Roslin comes up with the ingenious idea of telling the Cylons they do have a cure and offering to trade it for information. Lee expresses doubts, noting that back on the ship “Karl’s wife” (not Athena) said the Cylons were saying this prayer that basically means they’ve accepted their death.

All the same, they decide to try it, and as it happens one of the Cylons is completely prepared to give up valuable information so that he can live. That would be Simon, the creepy Cylon “doctor” from The Farm. Brief meta break: Of the seven known Cylons, Simon is one of two non-white ones. It’s been over a season since The Farm, and in that time he hasn’t gotten to do anything. He’s been in a bunch of group scenes so far, but the extent of his involvement is that he occasionally gets a line. Even Doral gets to stomp around being grumpy at people! And now they need a Cylon to be tricked by humans into giving up valuable information, and welp, there’s Simon. Whaddaya know. Battlestar Galactica has problems after all.

With the humans dangling a (fake) cure in front of his face, Simon spills about the infected ship, the beacon, how they were abandoned for fear of spreading the infection to a Resurrection ship, and that Baltar’s been helping the Cylons look for Earth. Everyone is, understandably, a bit ticked that not only is Baltar alive, he’s helping their enemy reach the exact place they saw as a refuge. The stakes now exponentially higher, Roslin and Adama are open to a new plan Lee’s come up with: Park the Galactica in a shipping lane, lure a Cylon fleet to them, and execute the Cylon prisoners, (hopefully) infecting the fleet’s Resurrection ship and exterminating the entire Cylon race in one blow.

The only one who’s none too pleased with that plan is, you guessed it, Helo. He argues that it would still be genocide, even if the Cylons aren’t human. Exterminating an entire race would make us no better than them, and anyway, they did try to live peacefully with us on New Caprica. Up until that point Roslin respectfully disagrees with him, but bringing up New Caprica causes her to go off. You didn’t suffer on that planet, she says, so out respect for the people who did I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that you just said that. Burn, Helo! Still, he’s undeterred, arguing all Cylons—like, say, Athena—aren’t murderous, human-hating fiends. On the other side of the argument is Lee, who says Cylons not being human means it’s A-OK to kill them all. Roslin says she’ll consider both of their arguments, but it’s clear which way she’s leaning.

The next scene shows us that there’s an unlikely person disagreeing with Helo: Athena. It turns out she isn’t going to die, by the way. Something to do with how carrying a half-human child gave her the antibodies she needed to fight the disease. Anyway. She’s not pleased by what Roslin and Adama are planning to do by any means, but she argues that it’s more important, at least for her, to obey orders and continue to prove herself. If that means the rest of her species gets wiped out, so be it. Helo, as a human, has the luxury of disobeying his superiors without the risk of being labelled a Cylon agent. Athena doesn’t.

Roslin and Adama have decided to go through with the genocide plan. They head to the shipping lane, and a Cylon fleet shows up to meet them. Everything’s going according to plan… until Lee goes to execute the prisoners and sees that they’re already dead. It’s Helo’s doing: He reversed the air purification system so the Cylons would suffocate before they got in range of the Resurrection ship. The Galactica manages to jump away before there are any casualties, but they still missed their golden window of opportunity to take out the Cylons once and for all.

Helo goes to Athena and tells her that he did what he thought was right, and if he’s labelled as a traitor because of it, so be it. But it won’t come to that. Adama, who was never truly on board with the whole genocide thing, decides not to investigate the sabotage, even though he pretty much knows who did it.

The episode ends with Doc Cottle providing some relevant information about the infection. One, the beacon was probably accidentally contaminated—Baltar may very well be enduring torture because somebody sneezed on the beacon before launching it. I wouldn’t have thought a season ago I’d say this, but: Poor Baltar. Two, the virus is an exact match to one reported over 3,000 years ago, right around the time the 13th colony left Kobol. That means the beacon was probably left by the colonists, and therefore the Galactica is probably on the path to Earth.

The problem, says Roslin, is that the Cylons are, too.

Hero

Welp. Time for another monster of the week episode.

The “monster” this time around is Daniel “Bulldog” Novacek, a pilot who flew under Adama’s command back before the Cylons attacked Caprica. He was captured during a top-secret mission three years ago and has been imprisoned on a Cylon Basestar ever since.

But we find out about all that later. First off, the episode gives us Roslin and Tory talking about how it’s coming up on Adama’s 45th anniversary of being in the military, so they really should have a ceremony for him. Not only would it honor Adama, it would also give people something to feel good about.

Meanwhile Adama is dealing with three Raiders that have popped up near the Galactica. But there’s something unusual about them: One of them is being chased by the other two. The inhabitant of the pursued Raider is, of course, Bulldog. He sends a message requesting help to the Galactica, and Adama, much to the surprise of everyone else in the CIC, orders that the Raider be brought aboard. The pair of them have an emotional (well, emotional for Adama, which means he looks like he might crack a smile) reunion on the hangar deck.

After being checked over by Doc Cottle to determine he’s not a Cylon, Bulldog tells Adama how he managed to escape. A while ago all the Cylons started getting really sick, he says, and eventually a chance came for him to kill his guard—a death-warmed-over looking D’anna—and bolt. But that doesn’t explain how he got out of his cell, since he attacked her through the bars. Something doesn’t add up here.

Moving the exposition chronologically backwards a bit, Bulldog and Adama explain the super-secret mission they were on when Bulldog was captured to Roslin. The pair of them—Bulldog in a stealth ship, Adama on his old Battlestar, the Valkyrie, with Tigh and some other crewmembers—were monitoring a group of miners who were working too close to the human-Cylon armistice line. Bulldog got shot down, and Adama thought he was dead, so he left. But Bulldog managed to eject, and he floated in space until the Cylons found him and picked him up. Something about the story doesn’t add up for Roslin—the way Bulldog keeps shooting hesitant glances at Adama has something to do with it—so she asks Adama to tell her the whole story. He refuses. What happened is my mess, he says, and I’ll clean it up.

Things get even more intriguing when Adama goes to visit Tigh. He’s feeling particularly confrontational that day and pushes Adama to tell Bulldog about his part in his capture. Again, Adama refuses, saying what happened is in the past and won’t make any difference now.

But Bulldog finds out anyway. Tigh’s next visitor is Bulldog himself, who pulls a hilariously uncomfortable Tigh into a big ol’ hug. (Casual physical affection? What do?) The two of them have a bit of a chat about Tigh being a drunk hermit and how Adama ended up on the Galactica, and eventually the conversation works its way to how “Oh my Gods, Bulldog, did Adama not tell you how you getting captured is his fault?!”

At the same time, Adama is telling that same story to Lee, whom he invited into his office for a family chat. Turns out the mission wasn’t about whupping some rogue miners. Instead it was to monitor the Cylon side of the armistice line to see if the Cylons were preparing for an attack. When unidentified ships showed up Adama made the call to shoot Bulldog down himself, since if human ships were discovered in Cylon territory it would be all the justification they’d need to start a war. Or course, the unidentified ships were probably Cylons anyway, a fact that Adama’d been lying to himself about for years. So not only did he shoot Bulldog down, he unintentionally provoked the Cylon attack on Caprica.

Wow. That, in the words of the immortal Marty McFly, is heavy.

Also, Tigh, you jerk. Don’t even pretend you told Bulldog about what happened for his or Adama’s own sake. I saw that glee in your face when you were leading up to the great reveal. You’re milking this, you drunk bastard. God, I love ya.

While other characters have been embroiled in flashback drama, Starbuck’s been reviewing pictures of Bulldog’s pursuit by the Cylon Raiders. Turns out they had plenty of opportunities to shoot him, but they kept intentionally missing. At this point Starbuck and I are both convinced that Bulldog is a double agent, a brainwashed sleeper agent… something. Sure, he says he was able to escape because of the Cylons being sick, but maybe he was just using that as a cover story because he knew the good guys would buy it. Furthermore, how did he just happen to find the fleet? She shares the photos and her suspicions with Tigh.

Meanwhile Bulldog, intensely ticked because of what Tigh told him, asks Adama to come visit him. When he arrives Bulldog beans him on the head with a pipe, ties him up, and proceeds to choke him. Mid-rant about how Adama abandoned him, he mentions that the door to his cell was left open by the Cylons. That captures Adama’s attention, and he asks whether the Cylons let him out. We see what happened via flashback: They did let him escape, but he’s not a double agent. They just let him go so he’d seek revenge against Adama.

I’m sorry, but that’s stupid. You’re telling me the Cylons set Bulldog free assuming he’d A) find the Galactica and B) be brought aboard, later to be C) told by someone about Adama shooting him down, which would cause him to D) try and E) succeed at killing him? These are the Cylons, for chrissakes. They take years to formulate elaborate plots. I call bullpucky on their whole plan being “Well, I guess we’ll hold this guy for a few years, let him go, and see what happens.”

The plan doesn’t work; Tigh storms into Bulldog’s room and rescues Adama. Of freaking course it’s not going to work. How would it, when the Cylons have accidentally engineered it so it looks exactly like Bulldog’s a traitor, even though he isn’t? (And how did Bulldog find the Galactica, anyway?) Tigh has a great monologue where he talks about the nature of being a soldier, and how the toughest part of getting defeated like Bulldog—and Tigh—was is that it robs you of your dignity and makes you think you’re worthless. The self-hatred, he explains, is like a bottle that never runs dry. When Adama asks him how one puts that bottle away, Tigh responds that one day you just have to decide to walk out of your room.

Tigh’s pep talk (the world’s most bitter, depressed pep talk, but still) gets to Bulldog. He’s shown, minus his murderous rage against Adama, leaving the Galactica to try and recover on a different ship. Adama, meanwhile, goes to Roslin and tells her he’s the one responsible for the Cylon attack on Caprica. He tries to resign, but Roslin tells him to STFU, because did you ever think the admiralty might have set you up to start the war they wanted, you naïve baby? The Cylon attack is way too complicated an issue for one person to take responsibility for it, so shut up and let me hold this ceremony for you so the people can have a hero to look up to.

Sigh. I love her.

The episode ends post-ceremony, with Tigh—in his uniform again!—going to visit Adama. Adama asks his former XO to come back to the job and asks if he wants to tell him what happened with Ellen (all my creys!). Tigh doesn’t respond to either request, but he agree to having a drink together.

Awwww, the friendship is getting mended. I like that part of this episode, ditto the larger Tigh character development, but other than that… meh. Bulldog shows up and you think there’s some larger traitor plot going on… until there isn’t. And a Big Dark Secret from Adama’s past is revealed… but he’s gotten closure by the time the credits roll. Nothing that happened in this episode, aside from the Tigh stuff, looks like it’ll have any impact on the further development of the show. (I will gladly eat my words if Bulldog actually turns out to be a secret agent or if the I Killed Caprica, Waaaaahhh stuff shows up again.)

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a bad episode. It’s no Black Market. But the larger series arcs of Battlestar Galactica are so great that when a monster of the week ep comes along and halts the momentum it’s just jarring, even if there’s nothing wrong with the episode itself.

Granted, there is something that went down in this episode that has wider implications as far as D’anna is concerned. Back on the Basestar she has a nightmare where she’s walking around the Galactica and is killed by a group of marines. She thinks it’s the gods trying to tell her something, so she orders one of the Centurions to kill her. In the time between dying and re-downloading she sees some sort of beautiful, miraculous place. Upon coming to in her new body she tells another version of herself about it, with Caprica and Doral looking on like she’s gone nuts.

Oh, and when she wakes up from the dream it’s in a bed with Caprica and Baltar. So apparently that threesome is canonically happening. Good to know.

In an effort to avoid spoilers, comments on this post have been locked. However, Jill and Susana will be reading comments over at our Facebook page, so if there’s anything you’d like to say in response to this post head on over that way. Former Battlestar Galactica Newbie Recaps can be found here, and next week’s recap is here. Have a (non-spoilery, for the love of God) comment? Hit me up on Twitter.

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