Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Six Of One...
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 18 | Aired on 02.23.2006
Sharon finally turns off the hellish sounds and brutes, "This is home. I'm not leaving." Six looks at her, and she busts a flip away. "I lived on Caprica for two years," Six murmurs. "I knew what I was -- pretended to be human, but...I knew." I know what "home" means, Busted Eight. Sharon gets up in her face: "If you knew what you were, and you lived on Caprica, you know what that makes you." She waits enough time for all the horrible ends to that sentence to become apparent. "A really good liar." I feel like this episode was written by committee, because it's such a strong story, just a great plot, wonderfully paced, brilliant, but the quality of the actual dialogue varies so strongly from scene to scene. You have this scene, a masterpiece of minimalism on the page, brought to wondrous life by the director and actors, with room to move, all about the emotion -- which is why it's taking me so long to write about -- but at the end of the episode, these wonderful moments are happening, and the dialogue is as heavy and thick and unpalatable as a brick. So then the actors get to say these impossible lines, and it's nice to watch, but...why not everything at its best all the time? Everything louder than everything else, you know?
Sharon strips to her sports bra and goes in to change. On her coffee table is a bowl of river rocks with some carven elephants hanging out in it. Gaius indicates them from the couch. "Start with the elephants," he says, and cocks a brow at them meaningfully. Sharon comes out in a long-sleeved violet sweater, takes a sip of water, going about her routine very deliberately and loudly the way you only do when you wish your visitor would go right to hell and get out of your face. "These are beautiful," says Six of the elephants. "Ithacan?" Boomer nods: "Hand-carved. My mother gave them to me the day I left for the Fleet Academy." Six holds up a picture of proud parents with a baby: "Is this her?" Sharon's silent as she puts on her jacket like Mr. Rogers, playing for time: "Supposed to be. Of course, none of it's real." Six smiles, like, "...Man, lady." "All fabricated for my mission. It's all a lie."
Six crouches down by the elephants, giving her usual first response to every statement: "Following God's path is never easy..." Gaius tosses some withering shade her way: "Don't get religious with this one. What are you thinking?" I love that even when they were together, she got on his nerves with the God stuff. Or that, if he's just more her, that she knows how one-note she is about it. That's so cute. "Do you think I care about your God?" spits Sharon. Six stands and laughs the laughter of the truly self-righteous: "Look, God loves you." I half-expect a stray beam of sunlight to illuminate her hair and shoulders like Roma Downey. Sharon cuts to the heart of Six's current dilemma, holding up a picture of people, her mates on Galactica, against this faceless love of God. Six can't handle both. Sharon: "This is love. These people love me. I love them." It could be Lee, in the picture -- which would be impossible -- or it could be Bill, or Helo. I did the full Zapruder and I can't tell. The guy's in dress uniform, though. "I didn't pretend to feel something, so I could screw people over." She's getting angrier, because that's a mighty thin razor line to draw in the truth. "I loved them. And then I betrayed them. I shot a man I loved, fracked over another man. Ruined his life. And why?" Cut to Six, interested in the answer, both to show her proximity to the wall and to show her reaction to this indictment. "Because I'm a lying machine. I'm a fracking Cylon!" Sharon screams, and throws the picture against the wall near Six. And yeah, the yell sounds like shit, but she's doing "Galactica Boomer" voice, and already demonstrated in the teaser that she's actually capable of screaming, but here she doesn't, and it's weird but not as deadly as it seemed in the preview last week. The picture smashes against the wall and Six's cheek begins to bleed. Sharon approaches, worried and repentant, and reaches out. Six reacts and pulls back. Sharon whispers, "Sorry. I didn't mean to..." She flips away again, blustering toward the bathroom: "I've got bandages in the head." My emphasis, but it's a good character note.