Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B- | 2 USERS: D+ YOU GRADE IT Speaking Truth To Power
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.16.2006
Later, on the Galactica CIC deck, Helo's wigging out and setting Condition One throughout the ship and he is not fucking kidding. Dualla tells Bill -- who I guess is late to the rodeo here -- that there are three Raiders nearby, CBDR -- Constant Bearing! Decreasing Range! Learning Is Fun! -- at bearing 145, carom 33. But, Helo explains, they're not in standard wedge formation, so it's so interesting. Starbuck and Kat are flying CAP -- wouldn't it be funny if the big lie was that Starbuck and Kat are always flying CAP, not because they're really unpleasant and/or scary people, but because they're the "best pilots in the Fleet"? -- and the most awesome part, Helo grins, is that it's two Raiders chasing a third. Which is so confusing, because they're not firing on any of the Vipers -- not to mention the Raider they're chasing, but we don't know that yet. Starbuck, as always with Raiders, wants to climb up their asses, and Kat is like, "But why are they..." and Starbuck's like, "Don't know, don't care, kill crazy." She tells Kat to wait to engage until they get closer, so it'll go faster, and they do, and then it does: the shortest space battle of all time. They take out the two chasing Raiders with like one spitball and a mean look, and then go to take out the last one, which is suddenly headed straight for Galactica.
Over the wireless, there's a Colonial pilot yelling, "Krypter krypter krypter! This is Bulldog. Get me the hell out of here. I'm wounded!" Starbuck and Kat decide to blow up the Raider anyway, and there's a lot of back and forth, and the message getting clearer, and Adama gets very quiet and very still, and duallas to the CAP to cut it out, and then helos for an escort for the Raider: "Prisoner drill. I want the alert guard in the hangar deck in five minutes." Helo and Gaeta OMG at each other for a long time, because normally this kind of shit only happens when Starbuck gets bored.
Down in the hangar deck, Chief is yelling lots and lots, and there's a very ominous shot of the Raider, chained, being pulled into the bay, Marines all around, the Raider's eye gone dark. Starbuck and Adama stare at it together, and suddenly, it starts, like, violently leaking all that gross biology they have in there, and then the hatch opens and Bulldog falls down onto the deck. And he is just disgusting, covered in that stuff. Adama, Starbuck, and some Marines approach guardedly, as Bulldog stands; he then salutes. Adama salutes back. If you know Adama at all, you already know that something is going really haywire in his brain and his feelings right now, but that's just because. The violins go crazy and Starbuck's eyes bug right out as recognizes the Admiral. "Is it really you, sir?" asks Bulldog, and Adama nearly smiles but not quite: "Yeah...it's me. Welcome home, Bulldog."