Episode Report Card Jacob: A | 85 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT That Old Song They Used To Play
By Jacob | Season 3 | Episode 19 | Aired on 2007.03.18
A woman comes to Baltar's cell, small and intense; when he sees her press pass he begs her to leave. She's bashful and amazed, in his presence. "Dr. Baltar, I-- I want you to look at this picture. This is my son. He's sick, and I want you to bless him." Gaius's eyes pop out of his head: even for him, this is a bit too much. He calls for the guards, promising her he's no God: "The God, or God of any derivation thereofâ¦" I wouldn't be too sure about that last one, Gaius. He apologizes as she continues to beg: "I don't have any special powers." Nor that. He begs for privacy: "I'm on trial! For my life?" She swears that she believes in him, and he's flattered, and as they rush her away he pretends to be offended, to be aghast, but he's not, really. Nobody has ever believed in him before -- at least, not when he didn't believe in himself even more strongly. He takes the photo; she swears that he can save him. "I'll do my best," he says, putting on a face for the Marines. Once he's alone with the photograph, our song begins to play.
"How many is that now?" asks Chip Six, a smile on her face. That's five. "Not including the thirty or forty who've written letters," she grins, scary, and he nods. He walks a line between wanting to believe and wanting to appear above belief; he switches back and forth between the Gods and the God, between atheism and prophecy. Whatever makes him look least silly, at any given time: "Well. I suppose it can't be helped. Celebrity trials invariably bring out the crazies." But Six knows better: Six always knows better. Six always knows how he'll twist and turn, how you give him the rope to hang himself with. How you tell him the words to explain it to himself; the inner dialogue he can repeat over and over until he believes again. He's strong, blameless, a hero: this is what he needs. "So you think they're crazy? See, I saw a woman in pain. I saw a woman who can see you more clearly than you can see yourself. Even if they kill you," she nearly whispers, "Your name will live on forever." Even if it was going to do that anyway, it's heavy stuff, especially for a man like this. When you don't know where you're standing, all you have are the whispers in your ear; he's a lot like Lee right now. I wonder how much Six had to say about this Marxist revolution?
Racetrack and Skulls sit in trailing position, in good old 289er. CIC tells her to have fun watching their asses; Racetrack tells Tigh to have fun watching Baltar's ass get nailed in turn. Twelve hours total, waiting on the enemy that never comes; "like bait on a hook," Skulls describes it. She laughs and they deal: twelve hours of Triad and then home.