Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Girl Who Fell To Earth
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.20.2009
Cottle tells the room full of machines not to unplug anything, and Ellen spots Tory as she enters, gasping softly with joy. The Six shines, seeing the Final Five reunited, and Ellen gets super obnoxious as only goddesses can. She moves from Tory to Galen, caressing their faces. "Yes. This is how it was. Tory, Galen." He searches her eyes for memory; this means nothing to them but what they think it's supposed to mean. She moves to Sam, holding back tears: "All those years. Oh. Oh, the poor boy. Such bad timing..." Tigh looks down, unable to feel any of this along with her. Chief stands and clears his throat, uninterested in family reunions when there's salt to be crossed. The Six nods and addresses them.
"We've been ... Thinking. We belong together. Join us on the Baseship. We'll jump away, start a new life." The Eight chimes in, asking her and Saul to consider, and Saul clarifies that indeed, they mean to abandon the Fleet." He is crusty about it, if you can imagine. The Six tries to explain, lowering her voice because it's sort of rude and Sixes are always polite, but it's something that must be discussed, like a bastard's inheritance: "The priority of the Fleet is the survival..." She knows enough to be embarrassed, just saying the word this way, in this context: "The survival of humans." Eight points out that the natives are getting fairly restless, pointing out the assault on "a Cylon" earlier.
Tory speaks up, which I'm sure will go well: "This is about the survival of the original Thirteenth Tribe, in its purest form." What she means is that it was never going to be possible for her to be a Galactica, because Laura/Tory lockdown for a year and a half on New Caprica already made her half a Razor. In a world without democracy there's not really a need for pollsters, and even those high ideals for which she sacrificed so much -- including, eventually, those ideals themselves -- don't seem to make much sense anymore. Fuck that. These Cylons believe in voting and haven't gunned down a Quorum in weeks now; they won't call her a whore, or make her into one. Tory can get back to doing what Tory loves: making things work, civil and social engineering, without all that messy organic trial and error or human weakness throwing off her plans.
I don't see much of a difference between Anastasia and Tory, actually, from this angle: one of them wanted to tear down the system and build a better one, and eventually died because she couldn't; the other one wants to run away and start over, design the perfect one. Close out all the books and the give and take and the shame and guilt and build a perfect society, where everybody does what she says. Of course, the mutiny in Anastasia's name burned off well too much of the ship and its personnel toward building a new system for both races, but then I don't see a particularly happy ending for poor Tory either. Even Boomer, who has gotten burned by more people on more occasions than anyone has a right to be, came back eventually from the 0/1 Utopias Tory and Cavil want to build.
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