Episode Report Card Jacob: A- | 1 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT The Engine You've Built With Your Blood
By Jacob | Season 3 | Episode 16 | Aired on February 24, 2007
I've never wanted Earth to be a lie so bad in my whole life. "What if it's ten years? So I train my son to be a deckhand because that's what I am, and that's all he can ever be? Is that the future we want?" She pauses, and either accepts the truth of it or ignores it entirely, depending on how she's feeling about the Earth issue today. Her smile is sad, and accepting, and loving, and strong. "That's a really good point. Tory? I want you to make a list of everyone in the Fleet who has a work history appropriate to the refinery. Factory workers, mechanics, whatever you think. Give it to the Chief. And I want you to hold a public lottery, and we will take people from other vessels, and we will put them on shifts in the refinery. How's that, Chief?" She's getting too good at this. He's right, but she can still swallow his truth inside her own: move resources around to solve the problem. Except they're not "resources," they're people, and we're back where we started, and Chief thinks like a mechanic so he doesn't catch it either. I don't think she's doing evil yet, but I do think she's dicking with him because of how forests work: they're made of trees. He leaves and they thank each other; when he leaves she goes steely. Telling them they have choices is the same thing as giving them choices, isn't it? When even she can tell he's got a point, why not give in -- in precisely the way where you lose nothing? But the tylium keeps rolling.
Chief and Figurski deal with the conscripts, including an allotment from Dogsville: "Get these people on these ships before they know where they're going," he says, scarily, and Figurski laughs. A kid, twenty or so, named Danny Noon, approaches. He's played by the most amazing young actor; I can't find out his name, but I know I've seen him before, and it kills me that I can't figure it out. He's so great. Not only is his technical acting, the way he says words, awesome, but he also creates a pretty hard-hitting character. It's funny to have somebody so obviously red-shirted introduced so late in the episode, but man does he make the best of it. He makes the episode, to be honest: I cried when Laura was stripping Gaius, because apparently that's what I do this season, but I didn't really freak out until Danny showed up. That can't all be my neurosis of people not recognizing how special I am, can it? The kid's actually fantastic? I can't believe his name isn't anywhere, he just became my favorite actor. Way to go, Hey It's That Kid! You nearly killed me!