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
In the face of such forgiveness, it's braver to accept than not. He kisses her back. She is bitter, and sweet.
THE FIRE SERMON
(The Redemption of Gaius Baltar.)
"I'm not a priest. I've never even been a particularly good man."
Paulla is still having a time. But look at him! Gaius is still totally bloody and gross, unable to stand, full of madness and pain, and clarity. There are people in the crowd who are in business suits. New people. Tory and Lee, yes, but also people drawn by the news, or the gossip, or the song, or the fighting. My Mom always said "You go to laugh, you stay to pray," which is how I have managed not to join a single cult in thirty years, despite being totally cult-susceptible by any measure.
"I have, in fact, been a profoundly selfish man. But that doesn't matter, you see. Something in the universe loves me."
He smiles at Six, standing invisibly next to Tory, lit by Heaven. But he's not talking about her. Not just her. He's talking about Jeanne, and Lilly, and Paulla shaking as he speaks. He's talking about Tory, and most of all he's talking about Lee. About what Lee taught us, so beautifully, when Gaius was this far from the airlock. When I say I love Sarah Porter, when I said the law was my religion, I wasn't talking shit: Same trees, different forest.
"Something in the universe loves the entity that is me."
They look back at him and see a bloody little man, barely standing, with the holy light of absolution in his eyes; as the smoke begins to clear and the faithful weep, and tend their wounds, and add their love to his. He weeps in awe, at God's grace, and in absolute grace. How can you look at him, this ugly, forgiven boy, this murderer and sycophant, finally beaten into the redemption that was his all along, who finally accepts his own divinity and the beauty of his name, with a smile on his face, and tears in his eyes, and think you're possibly worth less? If God exists, and loves Gaius Baltar utterly, and weeps for his pain: doesn't that mean your own salvation?
"I will choose to call this something God. A singular spark, that dwells in the soul of every living being. If you look inside yourself, you will find this spark too. You will. But you have to look. Deep."
Galen Tyrol looks at Nicholas. Looks deep at nobody's fault, nobody's mistake, the little man that remains between the lies of love and the lies of hate, the only thing left after he tore down his whole life, the only thing that's still certain and sure no matter what man the Gods have chosen him to be: