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
Adama stands across from Roslin's desk, on Colonial One, and she looks at him owlishly, and he presents her with a document and stands at attention. After a few seconds flipping through it, she glares up, disgusted: "Your resignation. You have gotta be kidding me." He repeats himself: "We can't hide from the things we've done. I see no other way around this situation. Maybe it's time, Laura." She looks him directly in the eye: "Siddown, Bill." He does. You would too. She accuses him of being naïve: "Did it ever occur to you that the Admiralty may have set you up to provoke a war they wanted? It's naïve to think that horrible things that we can't understand have simple explanations. Because simple explanations make us feel like we have control when we don't. We know why the Cylons attacked us, and it wasn't any one thing. Oh my Gods. We did a thousand things, good and bad, every day for forty years, to pave the way for those attacks." Bill shakes his head, thinks of satisfying the Gods: "Something has to be done." Laura takes out an invitation to his anniversary commemoration: "You know what that is?" Adama takes it, reads it, drops it. "Medal of Distinction." Roslin hides her love, and her smile, behind anger at him and for him: "This was before I heard about this resignation of yours. So." She makes the hmm again: "I'd like to propose this. You seem hellbent on paying some kind of penance for whatever it is you think you've done. So instead of resigning, why don't you get up and walk out of here. meet me on the port hangar deck tomorrow evening for this ceremony, and let me pin a frackin' medal to your chest." Adama shakes his head: "I can't." And Roslin gets a bit more flinty: "It's not for you, it's for them. Stand up there, acknowledge your Fleet, and give them what they need: a hero. That'll be your penance. Even if it kills you."
On the Galactica hangar deck dais, Roslin stands with Bill, attended by Helo and the CIC crew. "On behalf of everyone in this room, it is my pleasure to present you, Admiral Adama, with the Medal of Distinction for your forty years of courageous service to the Colonial Fleet. Congratulations." Applause hits as Adama takes the podium, and we don't hear a word he says; the applause fades and we cut around the adoring Fleet: Apollo and Dualla, Starbuck. Athena. We've seen how well they deal with complexity -- what was Season 2.5 but a demonstration of the need for these idiots to have something easy to fight? Take away the resurrection ship and you're left with a bunch of jerks -- and for that reason alone, they need this: a hero. They need Bill Adama to ignore complexity and shared blame just a while longer, give them another easy answer for a little while, so they'll have time to heal. Before the next thing hits.