Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A | 3 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Admiral Cain, She Dead
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 10 | Aired on 09.22.2005
Helo and Chief are in chains, sitting grimly in a Raptor which is headed back to the Pegasus. At their feet lies the body of Lieutenant Thorne, and they can't even move their feet to kick him. Adama and Cain argue about the assault: Adama feels the court martial should be held on Galactica, since that's where the accident happened. Cain pulls rank, and when Adama complains that they are, after all, his men, she replies that one of her men is dead. Adama points out that their matchingly intense feelings about the case prove that the trial should be impartial. Cain: "Oh, you mean an independent tribunal? Because according to your logs, Commander, you dissolved an independent tribunal when you didn't like the verdict." He does not reply "It's because the bitch got crazy, just like you." She continues, pointing out that Chief Tyrol was the one on trial for that one, too, which is -- point taken, but -- not really material. Adama sighs, "That was a different time," and Cain agrees wholeheartedly: "I'll be in touch, Commander Thank you."
Back in the Pegasus brig, the guards unchain Gina. Baltar puts down a plate of unidentifiable space food. Gaius dismisses the guards somewhat curtly, and once they're gone, he takes off his jacket and looks at her, appalled and unsure. She lies, still unmoving. There is weird, loud space guitar as she stares at the food, dead behind the eyes. Gaius assures her that it's not a trick, and slides down the brig wall to sit and watch her. His speech here goes back and forth from conversational to really fucking broken, and it's pretty difficult to watch. You don't really go to Gaius for angst unless it's, like, hilarious angst. Too touchy, to ask us to sympathize with him until now. It's pretty much representative of the episode: really, really well done, and really, really hard to watch. He just starts talking to her, watching her lie there, and tells her that on Caprica -- mentioning that he sometimes forgets there ever was a world, before the attack -- he was in love with a woman: "She was unique. Beautiful, clever, intensely sensual." There's a close-up, and he's choking up pretty bad here: "She was a Cylon. And she changed my life." He says, doubly, that she's quite literally been in his thoughts ever since: "Because I love her. To this very day, I love her. And she looks exactly like you." There's a close-up on Gina, and she somehow moves her face without moving her face in any way. "My name is Gaius Baltar, and I'm here to help you." It's intense. Gina carefully, slowly, painfully reaches out for a slice of fruit. She can barely move. Her hand scrapes across the floor, too weak just to reach across the space between. She slowly puts it in her mouth and begins to cry, sobbing weakly. Gaius stars to cry. Also, everybody else does.