Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Girl With Her Hand In A Lion's Mouth
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 6 | Aired on 11.02.2006
... So then Tigh walks in. Racetrack loudly invites him to sit with them, which is both sweet and dumb of her considering that Helo has Single White Femaled about 2/3 of Tigh's shit at this point and is edging into more of his territory with every breath. He doesn't even look around, just heads for Starbuck and asks if she's got anything to drink. (Everything you wanted, in the worst possible way.) Kat hoots out a funny welcome and he sits, noting that they're not playing Triad, but the incredible foreshadowy "Dead Man's Chest." "Cutthroat game," he says to Starbuck. "Not usually your style." She leans back, Starbucking up to her eyeballs. "It is now. And I'm in it to win. You don't like it, find another game." He grabs a chair from Sharon and Helo's table -- still not looking at them -- and commences bitching. "Oh, there's some straight talk. Have you seen the lineup outside the head? Fifteen civilians standing in line picking their noses and waiting to take a shower." Starbuck -- an equal opportunity haterator if ever there were one -- immediately joins in on the civilian-bashing, grunting about how they "think they run the ship now." A pilot at their table that I don't recognize, but I'm sure you do, points out that it's better to have way too many civilians than be empty and sad and sparking like during the settlement: "The ship was like a tomb." Tigh tells him that if he wants to know what alone feels like -- and note please the continuing poetic powers of Saul Tigh, because he just said more with one word than the rest of them say on a good day -- they should spend a few weeks in a Cylon holding cell. Like his missing eye is the thing that's aching. Like there aren't fifteen ghosts and more weighing him down. Fifteen men on Saul Tigh's chest, pushing down with all their weight. Kat grins and speaks up. Which is interesting, because she spends more time deliberately throwing herself in front of the truck called "Kara Thrace" than anybody besides Lee Adama, and she always knows she's doing it, and she always knows it's going to fuck her up, but she keeps doing it, because she is awesome, and because she loves Starbuck, still, the way Saul loves Bill.
Kat tries to speak their language -- violent, ugly, angry -- and defuse them, herd everybody back over to the same side; drag her foot across the salt on the floor. (The unbroken line of a house divided: I was right. It's tears.) "Yeah, it was a bitch on both sides. And it wasn't exactly easy coming up with a plan to save your sorry butts." While a stupid child would be able to recognize that she's being deliberately crude/flippant about it in order to get everybody over the hump that Saul just tossed in their path, we're talking about Starbuck here. Stupid children could do almost anything better than her right now. She takes her at her word. "You guys had it rough, huh? Hot showers, three squares a day. Viper jocks didn't even take a shot till you jumped into orbit." Helo calls, across the salt: "Hey. We all made sacrifices." "Is that so?" asks Tigh, sticking his nasty old self right in the middle of this, crowbarring the problem as wide open as he can, focusing on Helo, who keeps taking everything away. (Remember that friend you had in grade school that moved away that summer? Remember what a dick he was that whole week? Remember how he was just saying goodbye? Listen.) "While you were pinning wings on your Cylon girlfriend, our people were strapping homemade bombs to their chests. Doing whatever they could to take the bastards out. So forgive me if I don't get all misty over your sacrifices."