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
"I've had it up to here with destiny, prophecy, with God or the Gods. Look where it's left us," he says, sounding sick. He lifts the glass to his mouth but doesn't drink, listing destiny's providence. "The ass-end of nowhere, nearly half of our people are gone, Earth a worthless cinder, and I can't even walk down the halls of my ship without wondering if I'm gonna catch a bullet for getting us into this mess." He laughs, but it's sad. Kara and Tory worry, for very different reasons. Saul points out that he wouldn't have bet on their survival in any form, four years ago. I agree: you can't really complain about the lack of a happy ending when nothing's actually ended yet.
Saul asks for a recon Raptor just to check it out, and Bill drinks. "The soldier in him has had enough," Romo said. The lights flicker, and she groans. She's dying. Pain is a signal from your body to your brain that something is terribly wrong. She's groaning with it. "Make it a Heavy Raider. I don't want Helo and Athena to find out about this." They're relieved; they are the destiny contingent. Home is out there somewhere.
Someone on the forums pointed out that, for a long time now, "home" for Athena and Helo has been each other. She forged a Colonial identity out of suspicion and hatred, and became a favorite pilot. He sacrificed himself on Caprica for Gaius Baltar, and never expected to make it back to Galactica. So if this whole episode is about accepting that even the idea of home -- or self, or love, or command -- can be taken away, it's going to hit hardest here. Boomer is a question; they thought Hera was the answer. And instead, Boomer took away something fundamental from them both, and Hera into the bargain. They've already lost her so many times, and held onto each other through so much. He begs her to look at him, just look at him, and she can't do it. She sees the lights flickering, as she woke up into a nightmare; she sees the man who let her daughter be stolen away again. She's killed, she's died, to keep Hera safe, and he just let her go. She pulls it together, as he holds her at arm's length, and he begs her to say it: "You hate me, don't you? Say it." She refuses; she won't. That's not true either. She begins, continues, to cry. He runs; she goes to the Opera House and watches the angels take her baby again.
Laura wakes from the dream, as the ship goes crazy; a wall splits open in the recesses, and a Six falls from a catwalk, down, then begins to slip toward the breach. Dealino holds on, but he's pulled too; the Six grabs him and pushes him up; sideways has become down. She shoves him up, but loses her own grip and slips past a marked line. She shouts at him to shut the door; in shock, he does. "Lock it!" she screams, with the wind whistling around her. "Lock it!" He does. She floats out into space. It's not really about the Cylon earning their personhood: they've already done that; it's not about your side and my side, holding each other at arm's length and trying to fix the problem between us, that fails; it's not about the biological inconsistencies that won't bind the goo to the hull, or spark a zygote; it's not about anything but this: For a moment she looked different from every other Six. Now she always will.