“Excuse me. As long as I am in this office, the welfare of this fleet is not something you need to worry about.”
Those were the words Roslin gave to Lee when he was chewing her out over not being more honest with the Quorum and the fleet. Well, guess what Roslin? You climbed on board a baseship and plugged the hybrid back in to see what she’d say. What did she say? “Jump!” So it looks like the welfare of the fleet may very well end up in Lee’s hands. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.
Weapons Hold!!!
Demetrius and the rebel baseship prepare to jump to the rendezvous point to meet with the fleet. Perhaps it’s because Gaeta was lying half-dead in the bunker and unable to help them with the jump or just plain bad luck but something goes wrong with the Demetrius’ FTL drive and there jump doesn’t happen. The Cylon baseship makes it to the fleet, which naturally gets everyone on Galactica all worked up. It’s battle stations for them as the rest of the fleet begins to jump away.
At first Tigh’s screaming about action stations and getting more birds in the air. Everyone is running about doing the whole under-attack routine. Tigh is staring at the screen and says “Something isn’t right.” Just as Adama’s about to order the battery guns to fire, Tigh screams, “Weapons Hold!” Right at that moment, the Demetrius shows up and gets on the radio to let them know that the baseship is with them. So what was that all about, Tigh? Did he sense that the baseship wasn’t a threat? Was that Cylon programming at work or just decades of military experience telling him that the lone baseship, which looked seriously damaged was actually somehow harmless. And not only harmless but also containing humans as well as his final-five brother, Anders. Later he tells Adama that it was just luck. Adama buys it but are we supposed to?
After the opening credits, some military people and Tigh board the baseship and make their way to the control center. Kara tells Tigh, “They’re with me.” And Tigh responds by asking which one of them shot Gaeta. And that brings us to this episode’s biggest revalation…
Gaeta can sing!
Ok, maybe that’s not the most shocking revelation ever but it certainly provided some of the most moving scenes in this week’s episode of BSG. Poor Gaeta. All he wanted was to keep his leg but unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. While lying in the hospital bed with Cottle standing over him, prepped for surgery, Gaeta requests that he remain awake during the amputation. He says he doesn’t want to wake up without his leg. I can understand that. I mean, who would want to wake up to find one of their legs missing. Here’s the thing though – Wouldn’t it be worse to have to lie their awake and listening to the buzzing sound of one of those electric surgical saws as it grinds to through bone? I can barely handle the sound of the drill at the dentist. Anders watches on in the background, likely feeling guilty for shooting Gaeta in the first place.
Later we get to hear Gaeta singing and it’s clear by the way he croons some unknown folk song, that his pain is more emotional than it is physical. As we know very little about Gaeta, it’s hard to say why he’s taking this so hard. Oh sure, who’d be happy with having their leg cut off but there’s just something so deeply sad about the way Gaeta sings as he lies in the hospital bed. It seems to go beyond the physical pain he’s in. It’s as though he’s mourning the loss of his leg or mourning the loss of something, anyway.
“We’re rebels. We can’t go back.”
When Natalie has the chance to talk to Roslin and Adama (Kara, Tigh and Tory are both there as well), she tells them the deal. If they help the cylons get to the boxing facility to unbox Deanna, in return they’ll let the humans destroy the resurrection hub. Destroying the hub will wipe out any chance for the Cylons to resurrect ever again.
Roslin doesn’t understand why they’d be willing to give up the opportunity to resurrect. Natalie explains that they’re rebels and resurrection isn’t an option for them anymore anyway. She also explains that if they unbox Deanna, she can tell them who the final five Cylons are. Kara mentions that the five have been to earth and can help them get there. At this point I’m wondering what Tory and Tigh are thinking. While all four new-Cylons know what they are, none of them have ever made any mention about knowing where earth is – am I right?
Natalie says she’ll show them the way to the resurrection hub but Adama won’t settle for anything less than the actual coordinates to the location. She asks Adama for his word that once the identities of the final five are revealed, they’ll be free to leave the fleet with the final five. As she tells Adama that yes, the final five are with the fleet, we get close-ups of Tory and Tigh. It’s likely that both of them are wondering how they’re going to get around this part of the deal…
“I say we blow the whole gods damn thing to dust, lock, stock and barrel”
…says Tigh during a meeting with Adama, Roslin and for some reason, Anders. These informal meetings about the fate of mankind all seem kind of random and a bit too casual. It’s as though they’re in a huddle at a football pyramid game and trying to figure out what the best play should be.
Tigh claims Natalie lied to them when she said the raiders turned back after sensing that the final five were with the fleet. He says they’ve been fighting the raiders for years and they’ve never pulled back like that before. Now we know that Tigh knows that wasn’t a lie and that Anders is the reason the raiders retreated but obviously he’s not going to admit that. No, the best course of action is to encourage Adama to not only revoke the Cylon’s “bath privileges” but to also destroy the boxing facility. His motive is of course, to keep his and the other three final-fives identity’s a secret but he passes this off as simply making a clean job of the whole thing and following Roslin’s scriptures.
Roslin suggests that they split the difference by allowing the rebel cylons to unbox Deanna and reveal the identities of the final five. Then instead of letting the rebels take the five and go, they keep the five and get them to help them find earth.
When Tigh, Anders, Lee and Tory meet up later, Chief points out that at least if Deanna exposes their true nature, they’ll find out who the fifth Cylon is. Tigh thinks that’ll only crowd the airlock. In other words, it doesn’t matter if they find out who #5 is, they’re all going to get thrown out the airlock anyway.
“What is it about Galactica that gives you such a glow?”
This is the question Roslin poses to Tory. Tory doesn’t answer, “hot sweaty sex with my cult-leader boyfriend.” She doesn’t need to. Roslin already knows that Tory’s become a “charter member of Baltar’s nymph squad.” Tory knows she’s busted so she confesses that she believes in Baltar’s message, though she doesn’t really know how it happened (maybe because you found out you were a Cylon and with your whole existence spinning out of control, Baltar provided you with some direction? Maybe he gave you a spiritual anchor so that you can learn to accept that being a fraking toaster doesn’t automatically make you nothing? Just a couple of guesses there). Anyway, Tory tries to explain that she wanted to tell Roslin the truth. Roslin appears to be disgusted but her only concern is finding out how Baltar knows about the visions she’s sharing with Caprica-Six and Athena. Baltar’s been talking about the visions during his radio sermons recently. Roslin says clearly her friendship and trust mean frak. She adds, “I don’t really care if you have to spend the night on your knees praying or just on your knees, I want a name. I want to know who’s responsible for these lies.” Tory apologizes, looking ashamed.
Here’s the interesting thing. Tory seemed so unapologetic when she airlocked Callie. And afterwards she was all “we’re perfect” when talking about her cyloninity. It’s interesting to me that she can feel no shame for killing Chief’s wife but when Roslin treats her like a teenager who just got caught half-dressed and rounding second with some guy, Tory reacts not by saying, “Frak you, lady. I’m a grown woman and I can be a nymph if I want to!” but rather, by walking away ashamed and maybe even a little disappointed in herself. She might be embracing her inner cylon but it seems evident that she still craves the approval of Roslin.
She confronts Baltar about what he’s said about the visions. He assures her that he’s not lying and that Caprica Six told him about them back when he was on trial.
“For our existence to hold any value, it must end. To live meaningful lives, we must die and not return.”
Natalie tells this to the Quorum when she’s given the opportunity to speak with them. But we’ll get to that in a second.
As usual, the Quorum’s not happy with Roslin. Earlier in the episode Lee confronted her about the stuff Baltar was saying regarding the visions. She admits that this is true but mostly goes on about how it isn’t easy to look after the wellbeing of the fleet. Then after the meeting with Natalie took place, Lee once again tells Roslin that she needs to bring this to the Quorum and stop making huge decisions without first meeting with them.
So Roslin sets up a meet-and-greet between Natalie and the Quorum. Kara comes as well and Natalie explains about why she and the other rebels are offering the humans the opportunity to destroy the one of the biggest advantages the Cylons have – their ability to resurrect. She tells them, “The one human flaw that you spend your lives distressing over – mortality – it’s the one thing that makes you whole.” We see Roslin sitting by listening this and I’m wondering what she thinks of it, given her physical state.
Natalie goes on to say that she believes it was destiny that brought them to Kara Thrace and that Kara asked her to lead her people and she accepted. Just then, Kara has a flashback of what the hybrid said about her being the harbinger of death. Could this be what the hybrid was talking about?
“We’ve changed but the human’s haven’t”
Natalie has some doubts about how much they should trust the humans. She shares this with Leoben and a random Eight. They’re basically putting their whole existence in the hands of people who would just as soon kill them. But after she meets with the Quorum, she begins to have doubts over their own actions. She tells Leoben she doesn’t think they (the cylons) are ready for this. She also worries that the final five might not want to come with them in the end. That they’re watching the cylons and judging them on their actions.
It’s interesting that she brings this up because throughout the episode I’ve been wondering why the Cylons seem so sure that the final five, whom they know virtually nothing about, would be so eager to help them in the first place. I get why they’d want to know their identities but it seems like a risky assumption to think that these five, who’ve done nothing to try make contact with the other seven, would automatically be on their side. Adama seemed to realize that when they were talking about destroying the resurrection hub and boxing facility earlier. And from our own perspective as viewers, even the four final-fives don’t seem to know which side they’re on, let alone the way to earth.
Anyway, Leoben says it’s too late, they already have the coordinates. So Natalie goes back to Galactica to stall for time.
“Get away from my child!”
Athena, Roslin and Caprica share another opera house vision. Once again, Hera’s running through the opera house and Athena and Roslin are chasing her. Hera finds Caprica-Six and the two go towards a door where Baltar is waiting. The three head out the door and it closes behind them, leaving Athena and Roslin behind. When Athena wakes up, Hera’s standing next to her bed, smiling. She looks at her mother and says, “Bye-bye.”
The next day, Athena finds Hera drawing pictures of Six and she freaks out. Hera runs off and heads out into the ship and Athena runs after her. On the way she finds Chief and asks him to help. Meanwhile, Natalie, Tigh and a bunch of guards are walking through the corridors. Hera comes across them and, recognizing Natalie (most likely because she’s nearly identical to Six, whom Hera knows from the visions), she hugs her. When Athena comes upon them, she pulls her gun on Natalie.
Athena asks Tyrol to take Hera away from her. Now, earlier Natalie mentioned to Athena that all of the Cylons knew Hera’s name because Athena was blessed. Obviously this didn’t sit well with Athena, who will likely be forever fearful that the Cylons will want to take Hera away from her again. She tells Natalie that she won’t let her take Hera away. Natalie responds that that’s not the plan. Hera doesn’t believe her and she shoots Natalie twice in the chest.
“Jump!”
Towards the end of the episode, Kara visits with Roslin and, having heard about the visions, must have realized that Roslin was the “dying leader” the hybrid spoke of. She tells Roslin the quote: “The dying leader shall know the truth of the opera house.” Since there’d been no specific mention of the opera house from Baltar, there’s no way Kara could’ve known about that part so Roslin believes her and says she wants to see the hybrid.
Roslin calls for Baltar, who’s looking good with his hair cut short, and tells him that the visions thing is in fact, true and she wants him to come with her to see the hybrid. She tells Baltar that he’s in the visions so he agrees to accompany her.
Kara goes with them as well and when they get to the hybrid’s tub, Roslin orders them to plug her in. No one questions it but Baltar throws in a “God’s will be done.” (Roslin tells him to shut up.) Once the hybrid boots up, she screams one word: “Jump!” Oh frak. The baseship immediately jumps away to parts unknown. The president of the fleet, the leader of the new religion and the harbinger of death are all aboard. Now what?
So what did you think of the episode? What do you think will become of Roslin, Baltar and Kara? Also, regarding the previews from next week’s episode (read no further if you don’t want to read what was shown in the preview!):
Did anyone else see what appeared to be Lee (it was hard to be sure if it was him but it certainly looked like him) being sworn in? Also, was that Lampkin in that one shot? What did Cottle find when he examined Caprica? And from what it looked like, Natalie might still be alive (though in bad condition). Thoughts?
