Previously: Helo shot Boomer, Boomer found Kobol, Kobol inspired the Prez, the Prez talked to Starbuck, and Starbuck went to Caprica.
We open with a shot of the crashed Raptor on Kobol. It's apparently just seconds after they crashed, because no one moves for a second until Crashdown starts yelling at everyone to get out. Tyrol joins in the bellowing as they start herding everyone out through the smashed windshield. I want to give them all lozenges just listening to this. Tyrol and Crashdown carry Socinus, who appears to be unconscious. A burst of flame knocks Baltar back. He shouts for Crashdown and stares at the flames. Crashdown urges Baltar just to come on already. Baltar stares at Crashdown, and sees Six instead. She reaches toward him and says, "Take my hand," as the music gets all mystical. Baltar steps through the flames and walks up to Six. And then Crashdown starts slapping him and saying, "Wake up!" I wonder if Baltar's happy to get slapped around by someone he isn't hallucinating for a change. Crashdown leads Baltar away from the ship.
The survivors of the crash gather near some bushes as Crashdown and Baltar slide down the Raptor's nose and start to run. Crashdown shoves Baltar to the ground as the Raptor explodes. Not in a "blown to itty bitty pieces way," just in a "spewing a lot of flames and noise" way. After they recover from that, Tyrol says that he think both tanks went kaboom. Crashdown tells Cally to go retrieve the supplies from the ship before they burn up, and Baltar wanders over into a cozy spot in the bushes and collapses.
Credits. That was kind of a weird bit to use as the teaser. Although it did have an explosion. It sounds like it's a hangover from the fact that the first episode originally ended with the Raptor plummeting toward Kobol.
Caprica. Day 51. Helo looks at the Delphi Museum of the Colonies, which is an impressively vague name. He turns and snaps, "It's a museum. So what?" Heh. Boomer, whose arm is now in a sling, says it's also "the home of the Arrow of Apollo." Although it sounds more like she said, "the air fapollo." They should have considered calling it "Apollo's Arrow" instead, because that doesn't have all those "oh-uh-ah" sounds in a row. Anyway. Helo asks what the Air Fapollo is, and Boomer sighs, "You never liked history." She reminds him that the arrow is the only clue to Earth's location. Helo whas, "Who's going to Earth? It doesn't even exist. I'm trying to get back to Galactica." Heh. Okay, I finally figured out what it is I like about Helo's storyline: it's basically a black comedy. I think that's why nearly everything Helo says strikes me as terribly funny. Helo patiently explains that he just wants Boomer to help him to get off the planet and back to his ship. He adds, "If you don't do that, I'm gonna blow your head off." Boomer points out that he's only alive because of her, and tells him to shove his tough-guy attitude up his ass. That was his tough-guy attitude? Oh dear. She reminds us that it's dangerous to move during the day, so they'll have to hide out somewhere till someone brings the day-for-night filters over. Boomer moves off grumblingly, and Helo follows.
CIC. Adama and Tigh have moved up to the Core to chat. Tigh is marveling at Starbuck's disappearing act. Adama says that Starbuck must have been "coerced." Tigh says, "No one coerces Starbuck. Believe me, I've tried." Hee. Dualla announces that the Prez is on the phone. Adama asks Tigh to listen in and "bear witness." Tigh puts on a headset while Adama takes the phone. Adama tells the Prez about Starbuck's unauthorized jump, and asks if she knows anything about it. The Prez calmly replies, "The question you really want to ask me is whether or not I asked Lieutenant Thrace to take the raider to Caprica. And the answer to your question is yes." Adama trades a look with Tigh before he says, "You and I talked about this." He's such a dad: "But -- but we agreed!" The Prez says that her responsibility "to protect and preserve this fleet and its future" outweighed everything else. Adama points out that she's put the people on Kobol in even more danger, and the Prez agrees but says, "I am also deeply aware of the danger this civilization will be in if I ignore the pursuit of this arrow." Adama takes that in, and finally says, "I'm going to have to ask you for your resignation, Madam President." Whoa. The Prez refuses, and Adama declares that he's going to terminate her presidency. Double whoa. The Prez double-dog dares him to come arrest her. Adama says that he doesn't want to use force, and the Prez replies that she doesn't want it to come to that. She adds, "Neither does the press. They're here, by the way." We get a shot of the other people in her office here, and the thing I like is, she's bluffing. Well, first I thought, "Hey, where are those people with the silly names?" and then I realized that they weren't there because she's a big lying liar. The people in the cabin, for the record, are the High Priestess of Vague Mysticism, Billy, and a couple of suited extras that are distinctly not reporters. The Prez lies even more, claiming that the reporters are recording their conversation. Adama hangs up.
Adama and Tigh hurry down into CIC as Apollo arrives. Adama orders that Colonial One be isolated, with any transmissions jammed. He asks for a strike team to go after the Prez, grumbling, "If she can turn Starbuck against us, she's capable of anything." But then he says that she's bluffing, and Tigh sighs that he hopes so. Tigh reminds us, "There's also a Cylon baseship out there to deal with." Adama says, "Leave that to me." And for a second I think he's just gonna go glare the Basestar into submission. Which I believe he could do. Y'know, just fly out there in a Raptor and say, "Listen, I am having a really. Bad. Day. You don't want to mess with me right now." And then the Basestar would say, "Oh, dude, sorry," and jump away.
Colonial One. The Prez reassures herself, "This government survived a Cylon attack; it will survive William Adama." In an amusing parallel, she thinks that Adama is bluffing, but figures that they should take precautions just in case. In other news, Billy seems to be having a bad hair day. He should borrow some of the Prez's product.
CIC. Tigh and Apollo are looking over blueprints of the Colonial One. Apollo says that he knows the ship's security detail, and frets that they'll have to take the ship "compartment by compartment." Tigh points out that they've only had the budget to build two sets for the ship, and we've only seen one of them since the miniseries, so it shouldn't be a big deal. I kid because I love, y'all. Adama bustles over to Gaeta and asks about the two remaining iSpies. Gaeta says that only one of them is in working order. Adama says that's all he needs, and tells the air, "Now I need a pilot."
Sickbay. Boomer stands at attention to her bunk, her face still bandaged. Adama as-you-weres her and pulls the curtain around her bed. Oh my. That's actually a slightly odd thing to do, because while it creates the illusion of privacy, now they can't see if someone comes into the room. Adama asks Boomer how she's feeling, and Boomer insists that it looks worse than it is. I think the response Adama was hoping for was, "Still kind of suicidal, actually," because that might be a selling point in this case. Adama tries to steal Tyrol's understatement award by saying that "things are moving very quickly." Boomer assures him that she's ready to fly. Adama gets to the point, and explains that he has a high-risk mission. He explains about the iSpy, and asks Boomer to jump to Kobol, and head for the Basestar. Boomer points out that the Cylons will see the Raptor once they're in visual range. Adama assures her, "For all they know, you could be two Cylon agents returning with a captured Raptor." He adds that Boomer should act as if she's going to dock, and then fire the nuke into the loading bay and jump back to the Galactica. Boomer says, "I can do it, Sir, I know I can." Watching this again, the weird thing for me is that they didn't play up the obvious reason we should be tense about this. I mean, they're giving Boomer a nuke. On the one hand, I'm glad they didn't do some huge fake-out where they acted like she was going to nuke the Galactica, because I wouldn't have bought that, but I do kind of wish they'd given us a moment to think, "Er, that's not a good idea." Because it didn't occur to me to look at it that way until now.
Marines rush down onto the flight deck and meet up with Tigh and Apollo.
Starbuck's Raider winks into space. Inside, Starbuck looks a little discombobulated. I don't know if that's meant to be an effect of the extra-long jump, or the Raider's weirdness, or just Starbuck being whiny. She blearily looks out at the stars and sighs, "This doesn't look good." She turns the Raider, and Caprica slides into view. Starbuck recovers enough to tell herself, "Oh, I'm good. I am really good." She giggles and mutters, "I'm home, I'm home!" That was kind of cute. I can never tell how I'm going to react to Starbuck any given moment. I do like the actress; I just think that I'd kill the character if I had to deal with her. Okay, fine, she'd kick my ass in a heartbeat. Shut up. Something beeps inside the Raider, and we see a dozen Raiders flying out from the planet. Starbuck eyes the iSpy nervously as she flies under one of several Basestars floating in orbit.
Commercials. In the podcast, Moore says that originally they'd planned to have the Prez become a little more tyrannical in the course of the season, asking Adama to do some questionable things in order to maintain security. So Adama would still arrest her when she went too far, but there'd be a greater sense of her abusing her authority throughout the season. Then their concept of her character changed, so that there were a lot more shades of gray, but the basic idea of the coup remained. I just think it's interesting that Adama was more clearly justified originally. Although, as Moore puts it, the point is, "you don't break your word to Adama. You just don't." Heh.
Starbuck's Raider flies among the shambles of Caprica. The buildings look pretty cool, all smashed-up but standing.
Boomer sits, jiggling her foot nervously. Helo snaps at her to cut it out. Heh. Boomer whines that she's scared, and that she has feelings, too, which makes Helo snort. Boomer grumbles, "I don't know if you can hear this or not, Helo, but what we had between us was important." She says that it was "the step" and brings them closer to God. Helo tells her, "Don't mock the gods, okay? It's a human belief, I'm human, they're our gods." Boomer ignores him and goes on to say that she genuinely cares about him. Helo gets in her face and says, "I don't care. I don't love you. I loved what I thought was you." He turns away as Boomer blinks rapidly and snifflingly says that she has something else to tell him. The audience says, "You're pregnant, we know." She declares, "I'm pregnant." Helo spins and looks at her like...not as if he's shocked, but like he doesn't know what those words mean coming from her. It's unfortunate that I believe Six's feelings for Baltar more than I believe Boomer's feelings for Helo.
Three Raptors fly toward Colonial One. In CIC, Adama tells Dualla to tell Apollo to let them know when the marines have "a soft seal" on the hull. Dualla seems a little hesitant. Gaeta tells Adama that Boomer and Racetrack are ready to jump to Kobol. Racetrack is one of the chicks we've seen around, whom I haven't bothered to identify before because I'm lazy. She was in the attack on the fuel depot. Adama gets on the radio and tells Boomer, "Just wanted to say good luck, good hunting, and I have complete faith in the both of you." Boomer thanks Adama, and the camera follows her Raptor as it winks out. And then the camera swings back to show the Raptors clinging onto Colonial One, as Apollo calls in. Sometimes the whole documentary-style camera work in the FX shots doesn't do much for me, but I thought that was very nice at establishing location and also made a nice transition to...
...Colonial One. The Prez reassures everyone, "When push comes to shove, [Adama's] the kind of man who will not want bloodshed." On the other hand...she says the cabin may not be safe, and advises everyone to join the civilians in the cargo hold: "This my choice. You do not have to come with me." Billy immediately says, "We stand with our President." Aw. Then the HPVM says, "Screw that," and runs away. Not really. Instead, a phone buzzes and Billy answers. After listening, he tells the Prez, "Security Commander reports sounds of someone cutting through the hull." The Prez looks down for a second and then folds her arms like, "They are so paying to fix that."
CIC. Dualla tells Adama that the strike team is cutting into Colonial One. Adama asks her to get the Prez on the phone.
Caprica. Starbuck has landed her Raider outside the museum. She pulls out her gun before hurrying up the stairs toward the rubble-filled door. Inside, there are a lot of smashed display cabinets, and some statues still standing on pedestals. Starbuck opens up a tin of anti-radiation vials and injects herself in the shoulder. Owie. Then she straps her belt back on and starts to stalk through the museum, her gun at the ready.
Boomer's Raptor flies toward the Basestar. Racetrack wonders if the iSpy is working. Boomer says, "We're about to find out." As they approach the Basestar, a mess of Raiders fly out toward them. What I like is, we just get a long shot of the Raiders flying past, as seen from the Raptor. We don't get a lot of intercut shots with Boomer and Racetrack looking nervous, of sweat trickling from their foreheads, or whatever. The Raiders fly past, and then we go back to see Boomer and Racetrack exhaling. It's nice that they let the characters react without playing it up like the audience was supposed to be tense about it.
Kobol. Crashdown pulls a blanket over the face of the handsome pilot. He walks over to the other handsome guy, who has great hair, and the chick I thought might be Ensign Davis but who, now that I can see her hair, isn't. Should I start over? Sorry. Crashdown walks over to a couple of soldiers. The woman is playing with something that I'm forced to describe as a tricorder, and says that she hasn't gotten a response. Crashdown crankily grabs the tricorder and asks, "Are you even trained to use this thing?" I wish the other handsome guy would say something. He has great hair. Crashdown marches over to where Tyrol and Cally are tending to Socinus. Tyrol says, "I don't know if his lungs are burned or what." Crashdown casually insists that he'll pull through, and advises Tyrol to see to his own cuts and bruises. Then Crashdown hurries off uphill. Tyrol follows, and awkwardly asks, "Shouldn't we be moving out? I mean, do you have a plan for tactical deployment?" Crashdown snorts that they should move to high ground, so that they can be spotted by a search party. Tyrol points out that if they do that, the Cylons will also be able to see them. Crashdown looks panicked for a second, and then nods and agrees. The point of this scene is that Crashdown is totally unprepared for this situation, really. And he's trying to act like he's cool with it. The other point is that Tyrol's thinking more strategically, as he suggests that they take cover somewhere and get stealthy. Crashdown nods and agrees curtly, and then stomps off toward the burned Raptor. Tyrol watches Crashdown stroll away and then scratches his head like a monkey.
Some Raiders and, I think, some other ships fly over the Basestar off Kobol. Aboard Boomer's Raptor, Boomer tells Racetrack to get ready to launch the nuke and jump. Racetrack fiddles with some equipment and announces that the bomb release is jammed. Boomer closes her eyes and then stares through the windshield, looking worried. She finally suggests docking: "They think we're Cylons, they'll let us dock. We can release the bomb manually and drop the nuke inside the ship itself." The Raptor descends toward one of the Basestar's arms and heads for a docking bay.
Kobol. Tyrol calls for Targ and Selix. Selix is the chick, and Targ is the other handsome guy. I can't believe his name is Targ. He's too handsome to have a caveman name. ["Also, isn't Targ Klingon food?" -- Wing Chun] Tyrol tells Cally to keep Socinus warm.
In his comfy bed of weeds, Baltar hears Six ask, "How are you?" He opens his eyes and sees her standing over him. It's worth noting that there's a bandage on Baltar's neck, so presumably someone came by and checked on him in the interval. It is a little weird that nobody's checked on him or woken him up since, though. Especially with an injured soldier around; you'd think they'd be all, "Hey, a doctor is a doctor." Anyway. Baltar tells Six that she saved his life, and she asks if he'd like to return the favor. Baltar asks, "You in need of saving?" Six sort of sadly says, "You wondered why you were chosen? Why God chose you, above all other humans, to survive and serve his purpose? Now's the time to find out why." She takes Baltar's hand as he gets up, and leads him away past some fallen stone columns.
Commercials. I wish the Sci-Fi channel would just number their giant snake movies. it'd be simpler for everyone. Giant Snake Movie #7 isn't a great title, but neither is Snake King, so who cares?
Colonial One. The Prez's security team is preparing for battle. The HPVM leads a prayer circle. Shut up, HPVM. On the phone, Billy says that the Prez will not yield. Dualla passes on the message to Adama, who sighs, "So be it." Gaeta shakes his head a tiny bit and then turns back to his controls. Billy privately says to Dualla, "Tell me he's not actually gonna do this." Dualla whispers back, "Tell me she's not gonna make him do it." The prayer circle is interrupted by a metallic pounding. Dualla asks Billy what's happening. Billy says, "They're in," and hangs up the phone. The Colonial One's passengers gather around the Prez, while her security goons stand in a line in front of her with their guns aimed at the doorway. Back on the Galactica, Dualla is still saying, "Billy?" into the phone. After getting no response, she turns to Adama and reports, "They're in."
Caprica. Starbuck moves through the tastefully rubble-ized museum toward a case. The case is still intact, although if you freeze-frame you can just barely make out the label in the corner that says "In case of apocalypse, break glass." Inside is a metal arrow held in a statue's hand. Starbuck raises her gun and fires, shattering the glass dramatically.
Kobol. Six leads Baltar toward the Stonehenge-y ruins as someone wakes up the violinist.
Starbuck walks up to the hand and pulls the arrow out from its fingers. As she looks at it skeptically, Six steps into the frame behind her. Six says, "Pretty, isn't it?" Starbuck spins around and is promptly punched. Starbuck falls back into the case and poses there long enough for Six to say, "Hello, Lieutenant. Something I can help you with?" Then Starbuck kicks up and does a reverse somersault so that she winds up standing on the other side of the case. Starbuck jumps up and takes aim at Six, who is already dodging behind a pillar. Starbuck shoots and hits the pillar, then turns to shoot again as Six runs behind her. The shot knocks down a statue. Six keeps on skittering, and vanishes somehow. Starbuck looks around nervously, like maybe she's realized that somebody's going to be pretty pissed off about all the stuff she's breaking.
Boomer and Racetrack fly into the Basestar. It's reasonably alien. Like, there's no clear floor, and everything's curvy and dark and there are a lot of tentacle-ish pipes or cables. Basically, it's similar to the inside of the Raider, only less drippy. There's also a large pyramid-shaped thingy that I would investigate. If I were there. And not planting a nuclear bomb at the time. Boomer and Racetrack stare out at the ship with nice "What the fuck?" expressions, which may do more to convey the alien-ness than the FX do. The Raptor descends into what I guess is the center of the ship, which turns out to be a huge empty space. I wonder if the Raiders hang inside like bats. That would be really freaking cool. Moore mentions that he originally thought they would just land in a big white chamber and not see anything, on the grounds that anything they showed us would be a disappointment. But this ain't bad. Boomer places the Raptor on one of these great big curvy platforms that look like scales. Best caption of the episode: "(thud)," as the Raptor lands. Racetrack opens the hatch, and Boomer gets ready to head out. She tells Racetrack to keep the ship ready for takeoff, and to close the hatch again once Boomer is outside. She adds, "If I'm not back in five minutes, just go." Racetrack is fine with that. Heh. And later, she'll probably wish she had. Boomer steps outside and keeps her gun ready as she peers around. Nothing happens. The wall they're near looks like a big melted honeycomb. Kind of. The floor sags slightly under Boomer feet, and sticks to her shoes. Boomer prods a curving bit of wall experimentally, and then turns back to the Raptor and starts fussing with the bomb latched under the wing.
Starbuck holds her gun in one hand and the arrow in the other as she looks around nervously. I think the thing you want to do in this situation is get your back against a wall. Unless you're Starbuck, in which case you wander out through the room, turning around ever step or two. Six makes the most of the acoustics as she calls, "Welcome back to Caprica, Lieutenant. Like what we've done with the place?" Hm. I expect more wit from Six. Starbuck keeps on wandering through the room, and Six finally steps out a few feet away from her. Starbuck swings her arm around to shoot, and Six neatly takes the gun, tosses it aside, then kicks Starbuck away. Tricia Helfer carries herself really nicely in this fight. It's a little bit Terminator, I guess, but that's not really a bad thing. She's just very calm and decisive. Starbuck stays on her feet, and makes a halfhearted attempt to stab Six with the arrow. Six punches Starbuck and takes the arrow away. ? Starbuck punches Six a few times, and Six reacts about as much as a wall would. Then Six kicks Starbuck a few times, grabs her by the hair, and slams her into another piece of statuary. The violinist continues to lose his mind.
Colonial One. The marines storm into the cabin, guns drawn, and face off against the Prez's guards. Two lines of men stand maybe six feet apart with their guns aimed at each other. The Prez wonders if she can slow things down if she says, "Wait! I need to clean my glasses, and I don't want to miss anything!" Tigh and Apollo step into view behind the guards, and the violinist finally relaxes. Everyone else is still pretty darn tense.
Boomer hammers her fist against the top of the nuke, which is just funny. It suddenly drops down with a clank. Boomer stands up and hears someone says, "Sharon." And by "someone," I mean, "herself." She looks around and then walks around the back of the ship, out of sight.
Inside, Racetrack shrieks, "What the frack are you doing? Where are you going?" She turns to her controls and sits down so she can panic properly.
Boomer, gun drawn, wanders around the ship then stops. Behind the Raptor is an opening in one of the walls of drippy cables, and into that opening steps a naked Boomer. Backlit. Boomer doesn't know that it's Boomer yet, but we do. Or we certainly should. And then four more naked Boomers walk out. All of them begin whispering, "Sharon." Then they step into the light, sort of, so we can see that Boomer's head and shoulders have been superimposed onto a silhouette. Some of them work better than others. Some of them are just freaky. But the weirdest part is the lighting, which is intended to hide the naked naughtiness. Which, okay, except did they have to be naked for some reason? So each Boomer is lit on the face and upper shoulders and then the rest of her body is a black silhouette. And honestly, it looks like the Deep Space Nine uniforms where they're black with lighter material on the shoulders, and it's hard not to believe that's intentional, but Moore doesn't say anything about it. Anyway. Boomer stares at herselves and says, "This isn't happening."
Starbuck and Six continue trading punches. Starbuck is bloody and starting to look worn out. As for Six: her pants are a little dusty. Six knocks Starbuck down into some rubble, and it takes Starbuck a minute to get back up. Six asks, "Got anything left?" Starbuck charges Six with, I'm sure, a brilliant plan for attack that completely fails to come off, so Six just pummels her some more, throwing in some kicks for good measure. I can't believe I even get a fistfight. It's like someone made a show just for me. I'm starting to think that there will be pirates eventually. Starbuck stays on the floor as Six picks up the arrow, and behind her, we see Helo and Boomer scamper into the museum. Helo starts to take aim at Six. Then Starbuck rushes at Six like a bull, knocking her back so that they both fall through a large hole in the floor. They crash onto some more rubble. Helo stares down into the hole and finally says, "Starbuck?" Hee.
Commercials. Moore says that Tricia Helfer didn't have any fighting experience before this show, and started training as she had to do more action scenes for it. And yeah, she's impressive. Not that I know what I'm talking about, but she looks pretty fierce on TV.
Colonial One. Tigh says that nobody needs to get hurt, and that he's placing the Prez under arrest. The marines and the Prez's guards stare at each other. The Prez stares. Tigh and Apollo stare. It's like Carnivàle, except there's actual tension and not just a growing suspicion that everyone forgot their lines. Apollo abruptly says, "No, we're not doing this." Tigh quietly points out that he's in command. Apollo insists, "This is wrong." Tigh orders Apollo to fall back, and starts to address the Prez again. Apollo draws his sidearm and points it at Tigh. Oh dear. Apollo tells the marines to lay down their weapons. Tigh looks not so much frightened as completely disgusted by Apollo's behavior. Apollo tells Tigh to order the marines to fall back. Tigh grumbles, "This is mutiny. You know that?" Apollo says that he does, and snits, "You can tell my father that I'm listening to my instincts, and my instincts tell me that we cannot sacrifice our democracy just because the President makes a bad decision." Poor Tigh is probably thinking, "Adama should have said he supported the President completely. Then Apollo would have staged a coup just to spite him." Tigh doesn't move as Apollo keeps his gun in Tigh's face. Around the time Apollo starts thinking, "Fuck, he's not going to surrender, is he?," the Prez finally speaks up. "Put your guns down," she says, and moves out from behind the line of guards. Apollo hesitates and tries to move toward her while continuing to aim at Tigh. Apollo tells her to stay back, but the Prez walks up to Apollo and tells him to put down his weapon. She says, "I will not have bloodshed, neither your men nor my people, on the Colonial One. Not in front of the whiteboard; it's been through enough." Well, she says most of that. She orders Apollo and her men to lower their guns. Tigh continues to glare at Apollo as the Prez repeats her order. Apollo considers whispering, "But Tigh's totally going to punch me if I do that." Still, he finally lowers her arm, and Tigh immediately takes Apollo's weapon but, a little surprisingly, doesn't punch him. We hear metal clinking as the marines haul Apollo away. Tigh looks at the Prez, who says, "Let's go," and leads the way out of the ship.
One of the naked Boomers says, "You're confused and scared, but it's okay." She pulls the helmet off of Boomer's head. Boomer insists that she's not a Cylon: "I'm Sharon Valerii, I was born on Troy. My parents were Katherine and Abraham Valerii." The other Boomers gently stroke the bandage on her cheek and tell her that she can't fight destiny. More Boomers arrive and tell her, "Don't worry about us. We'll see you again." They tell her that they love her and always will. Boomer decides she's had quite enough creepiness and rushes back to the hatch. Racetrack opens the hatch, and Boomer jumps in and immediately gets ready to take off. Racetrack asks where her helmet went. Boomer snaps, "Close the hatch. Don't turn around!" The Raptor takes off. The crowd of Boomers gathers around the nuke that's sitting on the floor. One kneels to it and strokes her hand over it like it's her new pet.
The Raptor zips away from the Basestar. Another thing I like is that they don't make a big thing out of "Can they get out before the bomb goes off?" The Raptor passes the camera, there's a white flash on the Basestar in the background, and then everything goes kerblooey. The screen is all white for a second and then there's some nice bits of broken Basestar arms drifting away from a big white cloud. Pretty.
Tigh is on the phone with Adama, telling him what his damn fool kid did this time. Adama tells Tigh to bring Apollo to CIC, and to put the Prez in the brig. He hangs up as Gaeta announces that Boomer and Racetrack have returned. Boomer calls in and reports, "Mission accomplished. Repeat, mission accomplished. The Basestar is history." The extras in the background clap and woohoo and so forth. Adama loudly declares, "There's some good news," and orders the Raptor back to Galactica. I know he's busy and all, but it does seem a little odd that he's not immediately sending out a squad to collect the people stranded on Kobol.
Caprica. Starbuck whimpers and starts to move off of Six. Helo rushes up and starts to help her. Six lies dead, with a convenient bit of rebar or something sticking through her ribs. Presumably the same rebar was also going through Starbuck, so it was like a shishkablonde for a second there. Helo holds Starbuck and gasps, "I can't believe it. You are, like, the last person I expected to see." Starbuck admits that she could say the same thing. Helo laughs with just the tiniest bit of mania and asks if she's okay. Starbuck nods, but I think she's lying. Helo helps Starbuck stand and lean back against a wall. After a moment, Starbuck grins, "Oh, I missed you!," and pulls Helo in for a hug. Aw. Helo stares at her happily. They're a cute couple. I imagine Penikett is also kind of pleased to have someone new to do scenes with. Starbuck stops grinning as she stares up at something. Helo turns to look, and sees Boomer staring down at them. Helo starts to say something, but Starbuck grabs his gun and takes aim as she shrieks, "She's a Cylon!" Boomer dashes away like a bunny before Starbuck can fire. Helo grabs Starbuck's arm and shouts, "No, no, you can't! You can't!" There's a tiny beat and he adds, "She's pregnant." Hee. Starbuck stares at Helo with a nice mix horror and confusion and then gives a twitchy little scream. I think she's still fighting for control of the gun a little, but she might just be shaking. It's the noise you want to make after a really bad day. And frankly, she's having one. She drops the gun and slides down onto the ground as Helo tries to be reassuring.
Kobol. Six leads Baltar toward the big vine-covered archway we keep seeing. Baltar says, "I know this place." Six says, "Of course you do," and tells him to go inside. Baltar passes through the archway and looks at...well, some more ruins and plants.
But of course, in Baltar's head, it's something else. In fact, it's the opera house. He enters the cavernous lobby as an orchestra plays on the soundtrack. This seems like a good time to mention that I'm getting a cold or something, which makes Baltar's headspace even more surreal than usual. The low-angled, swirling camera isn't helping. Ooof. Baltar sees Six standing at the doorway to the theater, and takes her hand. As they walk down past the rows of empty seats, Baltar whispers that he doesn't understand. Six says, "Life has a melody, Gaius. A rhythm of notes that become your existence once played in harmony with God's plan. It's time to do your part and realize your destiny." I see. Baltar asks what his destiny is. Six tells him -- like, duh -- that he is "the guardian and protector of the new generation of God's children." She says that the first member of their family will arrive soon, and that it's time for him to make his choice. As they come closer to the stage, Baltar desperately repeats that he doesn't understand what she means. We go to a long shot as Six leads Baltar up onto the stage and says, "Come, see the face of the shape of things to come." The stage is flooded with light, and Six and Baltar are just dark silhouettes against the light, and it feels very Kubrick to me. Then we go to a reverse shot as Six takes both of Baltar's hands in hers and they walk up to a glowing white crib on the stage. They stare down into it, and Six asks, "Isn't she beautiful, Gaius?" Baltar gasps with wonder and then turns to Six and kisses her. Uh oh, the camera is swirling again.
Tigh and Roslin stand in the brig as Adama enters. Another soldier slides one of the cells open, and the Prez steps into it. The cell is closed, and Adama gives the Prez a little glare before exiting. He's just practicing for the glare he's going to give Apollo in a minute.
Boomer and Racetrack enter CIC, and a soldier shakes Boomer's hand and congratulates her. We pan around and see Apollo standing between two marines with his hands bound, waiting for his dad. Gaeta walks up to Boomer and congratulates her as well, and the camera slides down briefly but doesn't show us if Gaeta's shaking her hand or doing something else. I don't mean something dirty. Although I guess that's a possibility, too. Boomer sees Apollo and asks what's going on. Gaeta says, "A lot happened while you were gone." Heh. He returns to his post as Adama and Tigh enter. Adama stops to give Apollo a particularly nasty glare. Apollo's "Yeah, whatever" expression is priceless. Adama moves on, and then Tigh passes close by Apollo, and then Apollo does half an eye-roll and I giggle. Adama stands in front of Boomer and Racetrack. He congratulates them formally and notes that they carried out their mission "despite any personal misgivings you may or may not have had." Behind him, the camera focuses on Apollo, and then he lowers his head. Adama adds that he's very proud of them. He shakes Racetrack's hand, and then Boomer extends her hand as she thanks him, and shoots Adama. It really is a brilliant fakeout because my head was too busy with "Man, Adama has a gift for twisting the knife," and then: bang. So everyone jumps, including me, and we go into slow motion as Adama falls back against the center console. The sound fades out as Apollo shouts and rushes forward. Boomer advances toward Adama.
In the opera house, Six and Baltar kiss passionately.
Adama falls onto the console as Boomer fires again. Someone tackles her, and Apollo starts to run forward.
More kissing on Kobol. If you time things just right, you can see Baltar press his nose against Six's so that it tilts back and gives her a piggy face. Hee.
Boomer falls to the floor with a couple of soldiers holding her. Adama collapses on the console table as Apollo and Tigh grab him.
More kissing. And swirling.
Apollo stands by Adama's head shouting as Tigh tries to press his hands over the wounds. Gaeta grabs a phone. We get a nice shot of spittle flying out of Apollo's mouth as he screams. Hooray for spittle. Boomer looks numb, but what else is new? And then we get sound again and time resumes normalcy as Apollo screams for someone to get Cottle. Blood is soaking through Adama's jacket and down onto the console. A siren blares. Dualla holds Adama's right hand and presses it to her lips before looking around tearfully. Aw. Apollo presses his head against Adama's and cries. Boomer has a nice sad "oopsie" expression.
The camera pans up to the ruined archway on Kobol.
And back to CIC one last time. Dualla, Apollo, and Tigh hold Adama. I wonder if the Prez just lost her claim to the "dying leader" title. Fade out.
season: some will lead, and some will follow the road to destruction. At least, that's what Apollo claims. Moore does say that the Season 2 premiere will pick up moments after that last scene.
Production card: Khan! Sci-Fi was showing a promo, so the card was smooshed to the side. It looks like a deliveryman brings Moore and Eick packages, and then giant jack-in-the-box versions of the deliveryman pop out of the boxes and devour Moore and Eick. But the deliveryman said something before that, and I don't know what. I'm sure that would have made it all perfectly clear. Really.