Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Looking Up At The Admiral
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.17.2007
Apollo continues to, apparently, "come into his own": "Formation flying. Deflection shooting. Tactics. Doing touch and goes until every last one of you hits an okay three. Red and blue sections will go first, yellow and green will follow. Skids up in ten minutes. Dismissed." The Pilots leave, Starbuck stays, to scoff and flirt and actually be nice. He tells her to shove it, but she's proud of him, and it shows all over. "My only problem is that you didn't preach that sermon a week ago." She reminds him, however, that the whole "one fatal mistake" line is a Bill Adama classic. As Bill walks up, Lee -- who looks damn good in this episode, and normally I don't really notice his looks -- quirks a smile and returns her vibe, a little bit: "Well, if you're gonna steal, steal from the best." I miss the twins so bad. Kara takes off, winking or something at Bill, and they're alone. Oh, maybe they'll hug, or he'll give him a set of Paul Revere's steak knives, or tell Lee he's always thought of him as a son, or something. Because if there's a person that Adama doesn't think of as his own personal child, I have yet to meet him or her. Not to mention that "he's always thought of Lee as a son" is...sadly apt.
Bill deadpans about how tough Lee was on the squad, and Lee pronounces "a kick in the butt" to be worth "a thousand words." "Gods know you kicked mine enough," he says, I guess on the few occasions that Bill was home. He asks his father sweetly -- the two actors have great chemistry, and a lot to work with, so it's always good to see them together -- if he's okay, and Bill nods wearily. "President wants to take the fast track on Baltar's trial. She's looking for someone to take charge of the preliminaries, help cobble together the legal framework. She wants me to assign you." Lee pauses for awhile before expressing surprise. "She's gonna need someone she can trust, you definitely fit that," says Bill. They've met? And we didn't have a fake previously to tell us about this apparent relationship between Laura and Lee that never existed before? Or did we somehow remember their awesome friendship and tendency to commit sedition? Because if we're going back to that well, I'm prepared to fall in love with Apollo all over again. Then there's some more awful dialogue that I don't even know what to say about: "I remember when you were younger, you'd go visit your grandfather's house, and you were fascinated with his papers and his law books." His "papers," you see, and his "law books."