Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Hi, Billy...
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.09.2006
Credits. 49,590 souls in the Fleet, including Dualla and Ellen Tigh, but not Boomer. Apollo approaches the bar and Ellen's personal swerve-on area to get more drinks so that he and Dualla can continue their discussion of Billy's minor-league status. He smiles at Ellen in a personable, friendly way, like a stranger, then it clicks: "Ellen. It's, uh...it's...good to see you." Lee Adama is such a nice boy. He totally doesn't give this the "this is a total lie" spin that you or I would. The bad guys all around Ellen at the bar, Sesha's thugs, get up and start moving around, Sesha looking sneaky as hell.
Dualla waits for Apollo at their table, but Billy appears before Apollo can get away from Ellen, who's giving him some weird Ethical Slut polyamory lecture, which word thankfully my dictionary does not recognize, although it does know "polyandry," ironically enough for the two ladies currently concerned. Dee stutters and tells Billy that she's on a two-day R&R rotation. She looks around, now hoping that Lee will stay where he is, which she doesn't know is Tadpole Hell. "I'm on business, as usual," says Billy, and I don't know what he means by that exactly. He makes a sad face. Lee approaches, and Billy welcomes him, and then notices Lee looking down at Dualla. A horrible silence ensues, which Billy fills with a classic, and very spitty "I really am an idiot, aren't I?" The thin lips are back, and they're not going anywhere now. He looks disgusted, sickened, confused. Dualla tries to explain -- which I think would have helped us place this a lot better, frankly -- and Billy cuts her dead. She asks Lee to give them a moment, and Billy says he's happy to leave: "You know what? Have a seat, Captain. Be my guest." So that's two Adamas Billy's snitted at today. Lee blanket apologizes to Billy and makes a sad face at Dualla. Not such a joke when he's standing right there, eh? Apollo takes his incredibly fruity drink back to the bar to hang out with Ellen, because even though he's so hardcore and ambiguous and part of the underworld now, he still only knows one person in the entire bar: a desperate military housewife hopped up on pills.
Billy says that, at the very least, he would have expected honesty between Dualla and himself. She makes that What The Eff face she makes so well, but not as much as after the following: "...But you knew you were gonna be here with him today, and you let me propose to you." Dualla tries to interrupt -- and again, I'd like to actually know what the situation is, here, but Billy's not having it: "I know that giving you that ring was stupid. That's fine. And maybe this wasn't gonna work out between us. But...you should've told me about this." Okay, that's sad. "I know I fucked up by pledging my love to you." That's such a boy thing to say. "If only I had not proposed marriage yesterday, you would not have traveled into the past and liked Lee Adama months previous to that point in time." And again, Billy's filling in the blanks, but at this point, we shouldn't have to; the last time we saw Dualla and Lee, he was getting all shruggy with her and telling her they had no relationship. That was literally the last time. And now they're either meeting as friends (which is disproved by this scene), shacked up for two days (which is a big stretch even though they are both easy like a Sunday morning), or somewhere in the middle. But like, if we don't know what the hell, and we're somewhat omniscient, then how does Billy know enough to freak out about it? Where is the emotional core of this show? Did we leave it on Prometheus? This is all plot, plot, plot: "Billy sees Lee and Dualla having a drink. He freaks out. Dualla stammers and drools and Billy calls her a betrayer. Because later, he's going to be a Big Man and take a bullet, and she'll feel bad then." A lot of the time the acting caulks this shit together, but not this time. There are actual facts we need for the acting to make sense; the story doesn't track. It's not "Black Market" or anything -- it's one of the better ones of the six -- but...we used to be able to juggle the emotions and relationships of two, four, six...hang on...like fourteen complete, complex, real people, in every episode, and all of a sudden we're not capable of doing that? What changed? (In fairness, the episode gets better with each passing minute, and I think what changed were the stakes, because this stuff stops mattering. However, you shouldn't have to worry about stuff like this, because it really takes you out of the thing the first time around.)
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