Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT All My Darling Daughters
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 18 | Aired on 03.06.2009
Caprica weeps, putting out the candles for a service for her sisters. Ellen speaks. "For those that we have lost in the past, and for those that we are burying today, we must remember: There is a higher purpose."
Over her, in the launch bay, Adama speaks. "They gave their lives to save this ship. Casualties, as much as any soldier fallen in battle."
Paulla puts a string of beads on an altar. Gaius speaks. "And so we mourn the passing of our friends..."
The services merge, and converge. Henry Beston spent a few years on Cape Cod, in a house not unlike Laura's cabin, and not unlike Galactica: he called it the Fo'castle, because the ten windows and its position on the beach made him feel like the captain of a ship. It was his home. Later, he called it the Outermost House. He wrote about it for a year or two, before returning to Quincy Mass in September 1927, and proposing marriage to another writer, Elizabeth Coatsworth. Talk about angels: she said she wouldn't marry him unless he turned his pages and pages of notes and essays into a manuscript, to mark the time of his life on the beach. "No book, no marriage." That is a person who understands writers. And wouldn't you know, by April he'd got it done, and The Outermost House was published in October. They honeymooned at the Fo'castle. He wrote this about it:
"For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in its stream of stars -- pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across eternal seas of space and time."
Gaius speaks. "Because that is what we are, voyagers traversing the stars..."
Caprica and Ellen offer the Prayer to the Cloud of Unknowing. "Heavenly Father, grant us the strength, the wisdom, and above all a measure of acceptance, however small."
Adama speaks. "We must understand that what we sacrifice here today are women and men of extreme courage. So say we all."
And Gaius, praying for comfort: "In search of grace."
And Ellen, anointing her daughters one by one, in grief and in renewal: "Grace."
And Gaius. "Unity. Life. Love."
And Ellen. "Unity. Life. Love."
And Bill, with honor and with love. "So say we all."
And the Fleet: "So say we all!"
The cult comes into the military funeral and joins them quietly, as does Caprica. Adama calls the service, and they salute sharply, shutting the door on them. She carries a candle in vigil; Gaius holds the dogtags in a vigil of his own. Seeing her, he smiles vaguely to himself. He thinks it's as easy to impress Caprica as it is to impress Six.