Episode Report Card Jacob: A- | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Blackbird Singing In The Dead Of Night
By Jacob | Season 2 | Episode 9 | Aired on September 15, 2005
Off Apollo's dismissive snort about the new fighter's chances at flight, Starbuck bets him 50 cubits it's going to fly, and then allows herself to be baited into volunteering for the virgin flight. Dumb old Hotdog tries to get in on this conversation and is totally rebuffed, because just as with Kara's giggling, Lee reacts to depleted oxygen levels by...guess what? That's right: getting bitchy. They discuss how Starbuck's a full-on danger freak and totally rides the wave of adrenaline or whatever -- all that stuff they always talk about with her and her innate bad-assery because they still have to apologize three times every episode for making her female, and Hotdog is getting very awkward and losing motor skills by the second, because that's how he reacts to asphyxiation -- by getting dumber. I love how even this minor set of character references makes total sense: this is actually how these three people would react to something like this. Kara chortles through calling Lee to task for messing with Chief, who's actually doing something "positive" while everyone else is "standing around whining." There's some of that flirting they do so well, and then dumb old Hotdog collapses. Causing Kara to laugh hysterically, even as they're dropping to his side. "His lips are blue. You look like a blueberry!" she shouts, and as usual, Katee Sackhoff manages to somehow slide through the gap between girlish and ghoulish like she's paper-thin. I'd never thought about that being something you could be good at, but she's so good at it, especially in these very extenuating circumstances. Apollo informs us that "there's no oxygen in here. There's no oxygen in here. There's no oxygen." He follows up this very observant and not at all redundant comment by trying the hatch for a sec and then...throwing himself repeatedly at the window glass like a retarded gypsy moth. I love this man.
After commercial, Starbuck has finally stopped laughing and now looks super-creepy and on death's door. She finds her guns, firing at the hatch window. She misses three times, twice on the lock and once at the window, cracking it, before she's all out. (You're totally in a firing range, but...you know what, never mind. There's a lot going on right now and I respect that.) Then there's a pretty neat choreographed moment where she helps Apollo load an explosive round, and we focus on their hands, together, firing at the weakened window. The hatch explodes open and Starbuck's hand drops, still holding the gun. "Nice shot," she says, and they collapse, this genuinely smiling pair on the gratified carpet.