Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B- | 2 USERS: D+ YOU GRADE IT Speaking Truth To Power
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.16.2006
Three sits up, stares at nothing, goes a little bit crazy, and heads for the wall, where a robe is waiting to cover up her even-hotter-than-you-thought hot bod. So that's three possibilities, and let's consider them: is this Chip Six in bed with them? No, because Gaius is unconscious and they use that music all the frackin' time. Besides, Chip Six wants Gaius to break Three: any amount of Three-breaking he can do is already done, because his ass is out cold. And I'm sure it took hours and hours. Is this some random Six? I don't know what the point of that would be. Is this Caprica? Well, she's covered in red satin like Chip Six, in the form of Gaius's incredibly tacky pimp linens. But also: what does Gaius get out of it? He's not just a dirty bastard: he only has sex to prove a point. You have to have all kinds of stuff to be a player that he does not have: he's just a little kid. It has to be Caprica because it's just Caprica that he's focused on, and this is in some way a punishment. Whether or not it hurts her, which to a narcissist doesn't make sense anyway, because Gaius Baltar's psychology is based on projection.
Less sexy: Tigh's quarters, where he's bringing a lit cigarette into and out of his line of sight; his one good eye. In and out. In, and out. "I see it. I see it. I see it." What does he see? It or not it. He's in bed with ghosts, and one eye sees fine and the other doesn't. He doesn't wander out into the corridors with his boxers at his ankles, like last week, but it still makes me sad. All that time he was loving Bill, before and after Ellen died, he was working for the hope of Bill to come and save him again. It's something I've made fun of before and will again, but the facts are these: Saul knew Bill would save him; Saul killed Ellen because that would happen more likely than anything else. Nobody should have to make that choice. Because his worldview depended on those who were with Bill, and those who were not. He took that universe with him back up into the sky, and called it the Circle. He was right, when he killed Ellen, that the world would be like that: what he discounted was his influence on that universe, and the fact that he would make it that way because he couldn't find his own way out. It was true because he made it true once he was back in the Fleet so he was right all along, but that doesn't stop him being right all the same. He murdered her, and I agreed and agree with him for doing it, because he knew what the world up there would be like, someday -- and someday came, and he killed her. In fear of the world he created. This plays throughout: Tigh couldn't imagine a better world in the Fleet, back on Galactica, so he killed Ellen to save her from a fantasy. While doing everything he could to save the world for Adama. Tigh makes more sense than everything: he couldn't see a world beyond his fear, and rage, and courage. He is beautiful, for making the best choice he could in the world he saw, and the world he foresaw: he is beautiful because he saved Ellen from the Circle.