Episode Report Card Jacob: D | 1419 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT BattleNoir Redactica
By Jacob | Season 2 | Episode 14 | Aired on 2006.01.27
We begin in the Medias Res Lounge of the off-grid freighter Prometheus. The implied "fire" Lee will be bringing back to Galactica is, I believe, organized crime and general seediness. Apollo's got a gun trained on a man named Phelan, a bad man with a droopy face, a gifted character actor named Bill Duke you might remember from...every television show made in the last thirty years, and half of the movies. Phelan stands to look Apollo in the eye: "You're not going to shoot. You're not like me." Lee stares him down.
Forty-eight hours earlier, for no damn reason, a woman arises from her bed in the Cloud 9 suite L258. Her name is pronounced like "Siobhan," so that's what we're calling her. Her bedmate, who is Apollo, wakes up and starts begging her not to leave. This seems relatively unlikely, since it's her apartment and not his. She curls up into his chest and -- apologizing for "leaving," because she thought he was still asleep -- hears all about how if he holds up the Raptor shuttle back to Galactica, Tigh will have his ass. Rather than getting out her laptop for a quick drabble about the subject, she replies that said ass "currently belongs to [her]." Apollo smiles, and they get nuzzly. I think it's great that Apollo has a girlfriend, but they sure are cozy considering it's a pretty difficult calculus figuring out when this intense ass-owning love affair had time to start, much less bloom.
Later, Roslin's holding court, the Adamas, Dr. Baltar, and Colonel Fisk in attendance. The men all stand when she stands, due to the enormous importance of chivalry on this show, historically. When she gives them leave to sit, it's interesting that Fisk immediately plops down from his half-rise, while Adama lingers straight-backed, sitting last. Fisk congratulates Roslin on her "remarkable recovery"; Baltar looks sketchy and vile. "Remarkable indeed," Roslin extemps, "but now I'm playing catch-up." She fears that, during her bout with cancer, she let some things "slide." She and Bill share a sweet, relieved moment, and Roslin keeps it moving: "Supplies are running low, and the people are worried." Rather than asking for a summary of the actual economics of the Fleet, which would help us all out, Fisk simply pops a luscious grape into his mouth and smirks, "Well, they wouldn't be civilians if they didn't have something to bitch about." Fisk is a man who lined up civilians and shot them, yes, but he's also a man who felt so bad about it that he blabbed to the first non-Pegasus crewman who showed him a little kindness and a glass of booze. "Well," sterns Roslin, "I think that, in this case, they're entitled. Our inventory levels are tight, but they're not critical." Throughout, Fisk keeps looking to Adama for saving, making him even more like the über-Tigh than we thought.