Episode Report Card Jacob: A- | 1 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT The Engine You've Built With Your Blood
By Jacob | Season 3 | Episode 16 | Aired on February 24, 2007
Chief begs: "You do realize that none of that exists here?" and Gaius laughs. "Coming from the mouth of a mechanic." Chief insists: "We've kept democracy. We have government, we have rights, we have elections..." Heh. Okay, even I would have laughed there. Everybody's so serious on this show all the time! "Well, then you should feel perfectly happy, shouldn't you? Perfectly at ease. Go home. Leave me in peace. After all, that's what the aristocracy wants. It wants the working class to feel looked after, while they scrabble around for scraps from the master's table." Chief walks away. He's right. They're both right. What do you do? "Here's a question I ask at the end of my book; I'll save you the trouble of reading it: Do you honestly believe that the fleet will ever be commanded by somebody whose last name is not Adama? There it is, Chief. One set of rules for the aristocracy, and one set of rules for the rest of us." Code-switching like a motherfucker, going back and forth from the Aerelon accent to his normal one, faster than you can hear almost: what's real? Who's on top? Who's on the bottom? Which is Gaius Baltar? Which is Laura Roslin, or Bill Adama? Which is the Chief? Which is you? Where do you fall? When do you fall? When does it start? What does it take?
Chief takes off. And the look in Gaius's eyes...it's holy. It's rage. There's something new, poking through. Think about Gaius, about what it took to become Gaius Baltar. Superstar, traitor, celebrity scientist. The kind of man Kara Thrace would fuck, or Felix Gaeta, just because of who he was. Think about Gaius Golightly, fucking Gina on a bed of death, knowing what she was, knowing he was about to lock the elections, about to settle a new planet for all mankind. Think about how hard he tried to prove himself, as Vice President, as President, and how burned he got, over and over and over. How every single person he asked for that one simple thing let him down: Laura, Kara, Caprica, Three. The thing that makes you awesome is the thing that makes you suck, and vice versa. The worse he gets the worse I feel for him: I've wanted to do a lot of things to Gaius Baltar, but I've never wanted to give him a hug before.