Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT All Aboard The Battlestar Handbasket!
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 13 | Aired on 01.30.2009
Laura points out what an obvious psych that is, because everybody -- including her, not that she'll admit it -- listens to his batshit sermons every night, and Paulla steps in and gets Squeaky about how this is clearly the piggies trying to prevent Helter Skelter by taking away his wireless voice, and Roslin's like, "Girl, stick a pin in it while the adults are talking." Paulla goes twice as nuts, all frothy, and Laura laughs at her. Gaius finally tells her to shut up so Laura doesn't have to divide her condescension between them both, and Paulla bounces away to drink a few more Red Bulls. The reason religious zealots make me sad isn't because they're labile, it's because they're right about 99% of everything and tremendously wrong about the 1% that counts.
I have never seen people as driven or honorable or admirable as evangelists -- Have you seen Jesus Camp? Those people are my hero! Or Mandy Moore's character in Saved? I want to start a cult just based on her -- and then it's... Built on this one shitty thing that taints it. That's what always makes me sad about Gaius and Roslin, whether they're in cahoots or anti-cahoots, politically or religiously, whichever way the coin falls today: the two of them together make an entire worthwhile person. Mercy and justice; God and Gods; trees and forest; passion and wisdom. And it's like they know it, but they refuse it anyway, and backbite and fuck with each other like magnets with the poles lined up: all that wasted, ugly effort, by people who could be so beautiful. Isn't that sad?
"She's got a point, hasn't she? I mean, if you can convince the Fleet, why can't you convince her?" Which I mean, that's first blood. I don't think Laura's best interests are served by responding in kind, but it's a very skillfully ramped-up scene, dialogue-wise, that escalates the tension very nicely until you can believe she'd say this shit right here: "The thing is that I never really believed in your conversion, so I was counting on your well-honed sense of self-preservation." Gaius, sad, absorbs that and drops the nose-in-the-air vicar act. It's his usual whine that answers her: "I'm so sick of your insinuations. I recall your sudden allegiance to the priestess Elosha and the Scrolls of Pythia the last time your political fortunes were in doubt. Tell me, um, how is that working out for you now?" Laura's like, "Yeah, we're both frauds. You win, I guess. But we're all about to be murdered as People of Interest in this little coup, just like you always wanted. So why don't you atone with me by giving me the chance to address our people?"
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