Episode Report Card Jacob: A | 85 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT That Old Song They Used To Play
By Jacob | Season 3 | Episode 19 | Aired on 2007.03.18
Just kidding, I'm totally spoiled. By no less august a personage than Ronald Dowl Moore himself, for which he will never EVER be forgiven -- although the total balls-out awesomeness about to happen on Sunday night mostly makes up for it. In other news, back to the trial. Roslin tells the story of her execution roundup one more time: it was late, she was "grading papers" (by which I think she means "planning sedition and Baltar's murder" and/or "toking up"), they grabbed 200 people that were on a list with Gaius's signature. "Let us be crystal clear on this fact. You are saying that the defendant, Gaius Baltar, ordered your execution and the execution of 200 other people?" Roslin does that thing she does where whatever she's saying, no matter how banal or untruthful, seems like the truest thing you ever heard. I think it's in her eyes. "That's exactly what I'm saying." Everybody gets to muttering, Lampkin tells Gaius they need to talk, and I just figured out why this is boring. It's not just Cassidy's overâ¦whelmingâ¦ellipsesâ¦or her plodding, overdone rhetoric (I swear if that lady asked how we measure loss one more time I was going to measure some bitchslapping up and down that courtroom); it's not even the fact that Hogan for once went over the top with his pirate impression and made Saul's hugest scene, maybe ever, seem scenery-chewing and silly. It's the fact that this trial is about one person, and until he's onstage, this is all unimaginative and particularly repetitive foreplay. Lotta hustle, going nowhere fast enough. First-of-two bloat, in other words.
Baltar and Lampkin discuss the immediate discrediting of Laura Roslin and all the strength and character and wisdom and beauty for which she stands. "She's a fanatic, right?" is a particularly awesome line. Lampkin finally looks over at Lee, who's curled up on a sofa, looking dyspeptic. "You're awfully quiet." Lee doesn't really have much to say, but he doesn't have to: Lampkin's a thief. "See, your problem is that I'm a really good liar? And you're not. So let's have it." Gaius -- no slouch at lying either, as long as it's about himself, to himself, or to anybody else about himself, not that he would know he was lying -- catches it too, in his voice. Gaius is kind of hysterical all the time now? But in a whole new way where, like, instead of everything being the end of the world, it actually is kind of the end of the world, for him, so he had to bash up through the previously established ceiling of acting squirrelly and build a whole new floor of crazy at the top, and that's where he lives now. "It's probably not even true," Lee protests, knowing damn well it is. "I like it already," Romo says, making the point once more that they're here to do their job, no matter the cost to their souls -- which is fine, as long as you're honest about it.