Episode Report Card Jacob: A+ | 562 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT There's Beauty In The Breakdown
By Jacob | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on April 25, 2008
"I don't even know what I am anymore. I don't know which of my memories are real. I don't know that I've had one action in my life that isn't programmed." He's the only one who had anything to lose. Sam's with Kara, and Tigh killed his wife long ago, and Tory is dealing just splendidly. The only one the show could take anything away from was Galen, so it did. Tory kneels and begins to spin a web, talking to herself as much as to him. Telling him wishes and willing them true. "Galen, you're perfect. You don't need guilt. We were made to be perfect." Tigh, having dealt with the baby, asks her if this is more of "Baltar's crap," and it's not. Not yet, anyway: This is all Tory's crap we're dealing with, at the moment.
She stands up again, and Galen asks for more lies: "So... You just live without guilt?" Her response is barely a statement, nearly a question, advice she wants desperately to take for herself: "Just ... Shut it down." Galen disagrees: "The man you want to be, 'til the day you die." He begs them to tell him that they're the same people they always were, but what he's really asking for is confirmation that those people were ever real. Saul tells him that of course they are, even though he's more afraid than ever, spinning lies and wishing them true; he tells Tory to shut it. But Tory knows that's not the same as human, and never was: "Like, we're stronger. Right?"
Stronger than what? Look at them. Listen to Saul. "Chief, what you're feeling is what a man feels when this happens. It's normal, and it's human. And it's not gonna end anytime soon. It'll be there every day. You'll see her every day. You'll see her..." In the face of everyone you meet, in the face of the devil herself: Our psychology is based on projection. Galen stares at him, worried, and Saul looks from each to each, and snaps out of it. This is not their problem, and he won't be the weak link in this family. He's been that too many times to count; he's finally found an army he can command, even if the only orders he gives are to be brave, to be strong, to be unafraid and to contribute to more life, and not less. To take those demons and stow them somewhere safe, before they take control. "Be a man, Chief. Feel what you gotta feel. But don't risk us." He tells Tory they're leaving, and she begs Galen to think about it, "...What we are, what we can do," and Saul stands at the hatch, looking at the Chief: men who have lost something.