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
So, in flashback, we see all this: Bulldog edges past the Armistice line, and although his ship is called a, or the, "Stealthstar," he registers on dradis. Which is stupid. Two clicks past the line: "Negative dradis contacts. There's nothing here, sir. Which is fine by me. Company wants to pay me for a joy ride, they came to the right driver. Helluva moon." Immediately, an "unknown vessel" jumps in on Bulldog, and we hear it again: "Krypter krypter krypter, I've got damage to the port engine. Bird is down. Repeat: bird is down. Request rescue. Krypter krypter krypter. This is Bulldog." The vessel jumps away again, and Bulldog is calling krypter, and then two more Raiders jump in. Adama is frozen, overwhelmed, scared, staring at his Captain's hands, not talking, not moving. Tigh whispers his usual: "Don't do this. Think about it, Bill. You don't want to do this..." but Adama is galvanized: "Do you want his ship discovered? Do you know where we are? Do you have any idea what this could mean?" ["I'm saying!" -- Wing Chun] Twenty seconds before the bogies hit. Adama finally pulls a phone to Weapons: "Launch ship-to-ship missile. Now." And they do. And maybe it hits -- I think it hits -- and Bulldog ejects.
In the present, Bulldog screams at Tigh, but Tigh's not having it, and lays down some more salty sea dog rhymes on him: "Oh, it's true, and you know it's true. You've known it every second of every day since it happened. And the sooner you admit it, the sooner you might get that haunted look out of your eyes." Bulldog lunges, off on Tigh's mission of whatever, but Tigh grabs him: "Listen to me. Sometimes surviving can be its own death sentence. I know that." And the other half, which is that when somebody breaks your heart, or sees you being vulnerable, sometimes you have to hurt them for not saving you. They have to be smaller. Tigh and Bulldog stand looking at each other until Bulldog finally takes off.
Lee: "So the attack on Novacek's ship -- the one that winged him and the two dradis contacts that were following him -- they weren't Taurons. Those were the Cylons." Adama says that he told himself for years that it wasn't true, but that he was lying for a good long time about it. And that fits perfectly with him: "I was just lying to myself, pretending that it couldn't be true. It is true." He pauses, almost in tears: "I started it. Initiated it." But because Lee's always been about the easy answers, never more so than after the occupation of New Caprica, he's not having it: "Wait a minute, started what? Started what?" The attacks on the Colonies: "By crossing the line, I showed them that we were the warmongers they figured us to be." Bill begins to cry: "And I left them but one choice: to attack us, before we attacked them." But because Lee's always been a little stupid, he can't handle the idea of shared blame or context or ethical gray areas, he just yells denials: "No. No. Because it wasn't just you. They put you there. They put you there, across the line. You had no choice. That was the Admiralty. That was the -- that was the military. You were one mission. You were one man. One man." Ugh. But Adama is immensely touching in response, quiet and still and very sad: "It only takes one." And Lee looks at his father, breaking, and watches him stand, and stares at nothing, and begins to weep. It's not just Saul who counts on him; not just Lee, either.