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Everybody goes crazy in his or her own way after the adrenaline of "Home" finally subsides. Chief Tyrol builds a ship from scratch (!), and Starbuck offers to fly it. Tigh acts fifteen ways out of character, preaching moderation, pacifism, and at one point...being nice to somebody. It's chilling. Laura doesn't pitch a single person out the airlock, although you can tell she's itching to. Apollo and Dualla redefine "sexy" as a concept, Helo goes slightly Dawson on Sharon's robotic ass, and Gaeta practically slaps Tigh, awesomely. It's emotional anarchy. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones: Galactica herself has gone slightly nuts, thanks to a Cylon logic bomb that Tigh let into the network. After Starbuck and Apollo are nearly killed due to an unscheduled depressurization event in the shooting gallery, and various other mishaps, Gaius and Sharon tell everybody they're going to die in about five seconds. It's a two-pronged attack consisting of a Galactica shutdown and onslaught of around a million Raiders. Roslin helps Adama to stick a pin in his Boomer hate long enough for her to interface grotesquely with the Galactica network and sabotage the attack. Guns are held to people's heads, but in the end there is a lot of "whoo!" and "yeah!" and Adama calls Boomer a "thing" some more. The new ship is christened the Laura; Roslin gets predictably choked up; and Tyrol finally visits Boomer, which is somehow not touching at all, and actually a little bit creepy. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
"There are many copies." For some reason that's my favorite part of the clang-clang intro, and I couldn't tell you why, but I always have to say it out loud right before Sharon ["formerly Boomer" -- Wing Chun] comes on screen. Also, any time I think of this show. Back during "Home," I actually screamed when Adama said it.
Anyway. I'm Jacob. I'm nuts. Hi. I'm Strega's co-pilot this week, so you won't think I've stuffed her somewhere. We're friends and we agree on absolutely nothing whatsoever except for Warren Ellis, Tim Minear, and this show. Actually, we don't agree on this show at all, but we both like it a great deal, so that's nice. Mostly, I've learned not to cross her. I hear she eats puppies. ["Excuse me, I was told that what happened in Vegas would stay in Vegas." -- Strega]
We open on lots and lots of Cylon Raiders, on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. From someplace creepy, that is, to someplace ominous, with the initials B.G. Unless I miss my guess. Chief Tyrol's in the hangar, asking Viper 289er how it's feeling today. It's almost as if he can't tell the difference between a machine and a person.
Helo walks into the Officers' Mess like they're actually going to hang out and have fun, even though he's a toasterfucker, and everybody looks at him crazy. It's awkward. He shakes hands with Starbuck because they're, like, best friends now; it's very "I Got Stranded On Cylon-Occupied Caprica And Nearly Got Killed Seventeen Times And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt," and it's a good thing, too, because Starbuck's all about forgetting she reacted this exact same way when she saw Helo and Sharon together, except for how she additionally wet herself and had an aneurysm. Helo ("Karl Agathon" is like the coolest name this side of "Anastasia Dualla") introduces himself to Duck, and all the pilots and techs look the same to me so at first I don't know if he's being particularly "pointed" in an asinine way, or if he's just never met Duck. Frankly, I'd be surprised this many people even knew Helo, considering he's never really even been part of the crew as we know it. Starbuck asks if Helo'd like to sit in on the game, but he's feeling the frosty so he checks out. Duck, trying to make his plebe period that much shorter, gets all scapegoaty: "So he's the Cylon lover." Starbuck's kind of impressed at the kid's lack of insight here, considering she just smelled Helo and gave him the alpha dog okay in front of the whole room, so she tells Duck it's not really material who Helo fracks. She then makes the very necessary point that every single person on Galactica is pretty much being a hypocrite about this, considering how "everyone was high-fiving our Sharon right before she put two in Adama's chest." Dumb old Hotdog agrees with Starbuck about how manipulative the Cylons are, pointing out that Chief's head is pretty well permafracked.
So of course we jump back to Tyrol, who's making the subtext into kinda creepy text, running his hands some more along the wounded Viper, with some flashbacks to running his hands all over Sharon mixed in. DO YOU GET IT YET? On the other hand, this explains why he was in the Officers' Mess last night fucking the actual toaster. I told him I wouldn't tell anybody but you can't trust a recapper. Then, in a nod to the way the whole show has been treating my beloved Boomer, Tyrol jerks out a whole mess of wires, the Viper's heart, which is actually pretty unsettling considering he was at about third base with ol' 289er 'til just now. He slaps on a big old sticker that reads "UNSERVICEABLE - SCRAP," and goes off looking for a drink.
Can I take a sec here? Because that's awesome. You've got this show about man vs. machine, and they're both using machines in the conflict, right, but then you've got a man in love with a machine, mourning that relationship using this fourth machine, and then attempting to remedy the non-machine void that the romance has left in him by building a fifth machine. Which itself becomes a symbol of the future of the fleet, not to mention a tribute to a completely unrelated person. During all of which, the big machine they all live in becomes a traitor, and they can only be saved by the original bad guy machine, who's now a POW -- and having a human-machine baby. That's structure on a level I might actually need a machine to help me understand. ["You're all deep and stuff. I was just thinking it'd be funny if Tyrol slapped another one of those stickers across Boomer's face." -- Strega]
Speaking of Jack Ruby -- I wasn't, was I? -- Cally herself is being welcomed back to the Tool Room. There's a banner with crazy Tim Burton writing on it, and jam jars of moonshine, and everybody claps for her: "Yeah! Your criminally lenient sentence is finally up! Please, violently deprive us of yet more priceless founts of information! Don't ever grow the fuck up! We love it!" Seelix (apparently; I told you they all look the same: jumpsuits and dirty faces) and Jammer welcome Cally back with some racist bullshit about her lame sentence, and Figurski winds up his foot to go directly into his mouth when he says she should have gotten a medal for killing Sharon...just as Tyrol's walking up. Cally's all set to thank Tyrol for pleading her case, and instead of biting her ear off, which is what I should have done, he only slightly tells her to fuck off (well, he says "Forget it," but it's in his tone) before welcoming her back with a hearty "I need all the knuckledraggers I can get." Feel the love, people.
(I know what you're thinking, I'm some kind of rotten toasterfucking Cylon sympathizer. I don't know what to say except, "Guilty." They didn't ask for this war, but treating the Cylons like they're not sentient beings is what got the humans here. If you allow your enemy to define you, you deserve what you get. The humans are so reactive and freaked they can't see straight, or else we'd be finding out a whole lot more about what the Cylons are actually after. This is a twentieth-century war they're fighting, where you shoot first because the other guys are willing to die to exterminate you. Which gets you exterminated. But like, the twentieth century has been over for a while.)
Helo's drinking in Boomer's Raptor and Tyrol's getting ten kinds of aggro, lecturing Helo from portside about how Sharon flew X many missions and was terrible about her landings, and Helo fires right back: "Approaches made her nervous. She was afraid you'd be watching." Like he's a better boyfriend because he doesn't make Boomer nervous on her landings. It's all very awkward because they're talking about a whole lot of stuff in that boy way where you can't say what you mean. References are made to "her undercarriage," to give you a reference point for the territorial pissings going on here. Tyrol admits that he usually was watching her landings. Because he was totally in love with her and all that.
Back in the Officers' Mess, Racetrack folds. (She's the one who looks like Kat only more, like, elfin). Starbuck gasps because they're playing Space Poker and there are "three up." Racetrack points out that the Space Poker cards are old and spindled and mutilated and frakked, so she knows Starbuck's holding "Prince high red." God, like Earth Poker's not boring enough. Even Starbuck is like, "What, are you gonna cry?" and Racetrack climbs up on quite a soapbox to deliver the Message Of The Week: Things Are Sucky: "...I just want it to end, okay? The bad food, the endless rotations, pretending that a card game is the high point of our day." Kara ["a.k.a. Starbuck" -- Wing Chun] starts talking about Earth and all that crap as Racetrack gets her stuff together so that she can go be crazy somewhere else, and Racetrack points out the cruddy "planetarium show" nature of the Dionne Warwick Astrology Experience they had on Kobol. Starbuck suddenly tells everybody to go to hell and says she's going to go find Helo, because he feels alienated and left out due to his penchant for making toaster babies. Racetrack -- apparently born yesterday -- insinuates several things at once about both Starbuck and Helo, not to mention their relationship: "Good idea. Maybe that Cylon whore taught him a few tricks." Starbuck slams her ass.
Back to the extremely awkward conversation in the hangar, where Helo's -- ouch -- apologizing to Tyrol for the whole toaster baby issue, and what it implies about what was going on down on Cylon-Occupied Caprica. All about how he "never intended it" and how it "just kind of evolved." Rule #1 for having this conversation, if you must: do not ever cede prior possession. For one thing, it's sexist, and for another, it puts you in a weak position. The fact is, Helo assumed he and Boomer were both going to die down on Caprica, and had an excellent reason for doing so. Not to mention Boomer's being all over Helo's gravy for a while before he finally gave in, which implies that she was making her own choice, for which neither Helo nor Tyrol is responsible, since she's a grown woman (basically). (We'll leave out the part where she was basically harvesting Helo's seed for her Imperious Blonde Masters, because she later came to love him.) But whatever, Tyrol gets all up in Helo's personal space and Helo acknowledges that Sharon loves/loved the Chief. Tyrol tells us all about how they were going to muster out at the end of their service and get married and have kids, which, not for nothing, but between now and when you made that lovely plan in what was surely a sunlit Andrew Wyeth field full of wheat and the smell of roses, HUMANITY WAS DESTROYED. So I'm thinking it's not merely Karl Agathon's admittedly television-transcending pheromones that disrupted that particular romantic plan. Of course, now that Tyrol's on this train, he's not getting off: "I guess I'm just a big frackin' idiot, though, huh? Probably that goddamn toaster's plan all along --" Helo begs Tyrol to quit with the bigotry, but Tyrol really likes this idea -- that somehow he'd been duped -- which he happens upon, like, every third episode, because it means that the love wasn't real and he's not to blame for covering up for her robot misdeeds all through Season 1. After all, she had him in her clutches. This is not my favorite flavor of Chief, but I get it.
Tyrol: "I should probably be grateful to you...that freak in her belly could have been mine." Helo has had a bit more than enough, and he pushes Tyrol onto the Raptor's wing, which he inelegantly slide-rolls off down onto the floor. Bad move, Helo. You've gotta let Tyrol think he won this one or else it'll never stop. Just let him take it out on you. Helo apologizes again, for forcing Tyrol to take that pratfall, and Tyrol jumps him. They fight for a while, and the whole time, Helo's trying to chill him out, which of course isn't going to work, and he's stupid for going in there in the first place, but there's no way he could know that Tyrol had been stroking the equipment all day, getting his jealous and heartbroken dander up. Tyrol piledrives Helo, and closed captioning notes that he calls him a "toasterlover," and then, having pinned him, Tyrol picks up a wrench and I cross my fingers that Marissa Cooper will come in and shoot him, but he gets it together and immediately slips into the Fifth Stage of Toaster Mourning: Drawing Meaningless Lines In The Sand. "I don't even know why I'm mad at you," Tyrol relents. "My Sharon's dead. That thing in the brig, that isn't Sharon." Um, it totally is, but complete the thought, dude. This kind of compartmentalization is why Laura Roslin's constantly pitching people out of airlocks. You don't want to go out like that.
CIC! That's where Gaeta and Dualla live! Dualla gets some feedback on comm, and Tigh asks, "What the hell is that?" That's important for a reason I'll explain later, but basically we're going to use math to express why Tigh should proceed directly to hell. Gaeta explains that the whole deal with Dualla's earpiece is endemic to the fact that the Galactica's moderately buggered today, but that specifically they're also transmitting an unstoppable signal into space. It goes something like this: "Dear Cylons: Come and kill us and put the women in rape camps, please. Signed, The Fleet." Adama shows some initiative, which is always helpful in an XO, which he is not. He orders an update and distribution of emergency jump sites, and then Dualla's panel glows and explodes, sending her flying.
The teaser, which is seventy years long, ends on another shot of Raiders. Lots and lots of Raiders. And you and I both know where they're headed. There are the credits (47,853 souls in the fleet), and then a commercial for the Sci Fi Original Movie Dracula 3000: Because Even In The Year 3000, Black People Are Still Scary. I hate it on principle. Several principles, in fact: first of all, because it's a Sci Fi movie, and the only good one of those is Faust: Love Of The Damned, which is the most awesomely crappy movie in the entire universe, and secondly because I blame everything Sci Fi produces for Farscape ending. ["Oh, Jesus, you're one of those. And you obviously haven't seen Hawk the Slayer" -- Strega] ["Yes, I'm one of those, and now you know my shameful secret." -- Jacob] It's why I didn't get into this very show until the actual series started -- too bitter -- so I had to go back and watch the mini after the first season was over. Which, you can imagine what that was like, and somehow Sci Fi is to blame for that too. Mostly, though, like I'm so sure that Blacula, in the year 3000 no less, still talks like CJ from GTA: San Andreas. Okay? (P.S. -- Please don't tell the American Idol people about any of this, because they think I'm some kind of discotheque mall-hopping Valley Girl or something and they must not know I'm a total dork.)
We open on the Hated Rock-Em Sock-Em Big Head Raider, which I would love to never see again, actually, and then it's back to CIC. Dualla is, of course, fine, having just been exploded, but we've established her and Kara as Adama's pseudo-daughters, so Adama overreacts and tells her to stay down and wait for Dr. Cottle. Tigh, clearly having no pseudo-parental compunctions, immediately sends Gaeta to the exploding board, as Dualla continues to protest that she's fine. Gaeta explains to them that there's been a power surge (duh), and that the "system's been twitchy" since the Cylons infiltrated the network, which was, of course, Tigh's fault, remember, so -- as Adama points out that exploding machinery constitutes a threat level a bit high than glitch -- Tigh once more performs his seminal pop hit "Oops (I'm Ricky Gervais)," all blustery and ignorant and wanting to seem in control of every little thing. I would like at this point to express my love and regret for whoever on the writing staff had to grow up inside The Great Santini, because impotent alcoholics are no fun to be around when you're a kid: "I don't care if you have to go through this program line by line, fix it!" I hate that so much, but I'm glad it got a few more people in the house yelling at Tigh, because normally it's just me. That is just blatantly showing your ass and your ignorance and so, so typical of Tigh. The network has like a googol of code, Mr. XO, but of course you don't know that, because you're not the computer guy. (You know who is? Gaeta.) It's not in your skill set. But hey, if you ever figure out what the hell actually is, I'm sure you'll be really stunning at whatever it is. I guess in addition to having octagon newspapers, this particular space society also lacks the ASVAB Inventory of Skills. Gaeta then basically says everything I just said, only he screams it. Even Gaetas get sleepy and overworked. Of course, Tigh can't even say a word; he just looks mutely at Adama like always to save his ass, and Adama tells Gaeta to chill out.
Tigh whines to Adama on the QT: "What the hell is his problem?" And since Adama has a total blindspot about Tigh, he skips over the part about Tigh's pointless and illegitimate displays of power ["You mean, like when Tigh staged that coup? Oh, wait..." -- Strega], and just tells him what he already thinks -- that it's because everything is hopeless and futile and the rest of their lives is going to be spent on the brink of extinction, constantly running and dying of terror and getting more and more pissy with each other and eventually turning to reality TV and cannibalism. It's rather bleak.
Apollo comes into the hanger and asks Chief where he might find the 289er Viper. Wait, so was that Boomer's ship? I should have figured that out in the first damn scene. I'm dumb, you guys. He only, like, made out with it. Man. ["Now I will render your heartfelt confession meaningless: Boomer flew a Raptor, not a Viper. So, no, that's not her ship." -- Strega] ["Okay, so the Vipers are the ones that have room for one person named Starbuck or Apollo, and the Raptors are the airport shuttle ones like Boomer and Helo had on Caprica, when Gaius ["a.k.a. Baltar" -- Wing Chun] almost screwed over that old blind lady. Got it." -- Jacob] See, if I had that geek thing I'd have already known for sure one way or the other, like before the episode even started, but that's where I fail at this, because I can't ever remember anything about ships or military rank or any of that stuff. The first Star Wars movie is like a total mystery to me every time I watch it because I never know who anybody is or what they're doing. There are, like, four ships to keep track of on Farscape and I can never remember which is which, and, like, some of them are named after people's dead wives and I still just...it doesn't stick. That particular pasta is just never al dente, in my brain. I lack the necessary thing. Tyrol tells Apollo that the ship's grounded for scrap, and can you guess what Lee ["a.k.a. Apollo" -- Wing Chun] does? That's right: he gets bitchy. He quickly gets some noblesse oblige from somewhere deep in the Adama part of himself, though, and lays off pretty quick, asking Chief just to do his best: "Nobody's expecting any miracles." Tyrol makes a thinky face: "Maybe that's the problem."
Down in the enlisted quarters, Tyrol has a totally unnecessary voice-over scene where he gets thinky some more. "Frack it. Why not?" He's a good enough actor that we could have just ended the scene there, with the thinky face followed by the frack it face, but whatever. Three seconds total, in a brilliant episode, of a great season, of the best show on TV? I'm not complaining. I'm just sorry for the crew that had to do that pointless setup.
Down in the hangar bay, Tyrol starts putting together some kind of spaceship with his bare hands. And a soldering iron. I guess we're meant to assume that he's been up all night, putting that thing I was just bitching about into perspective, but whatever, it would still have worked because the techs come in rubbing their eyes and yawning. There are lots of fun cuts of Tyrol working really hard, people staring, and lots and lots of plans. Given his opening by Jammer, Tyrol explains that they're going to be building a new fighter. Jammer, the voice of the people, complains that they're already backlogged on repairs, but Tyrol reassures them that it's "strictly off-duty" and that they're meant to continue doing their regular work. Everybody stares at him like he just suggested dumb old Hotdog for the new XO. (Which...hmm.) With some ribbing from that salty dog Figurski, Jammer points out that this is an incredibly daunting project. That's totally what I was thinking. I mean, I know it's their job, basically, but the concept of, say, building someone a car seems about as doable to me personally as the proof for Gödel's Uncertainty Theorem, or understanding the point of football, or explaining the concept of "reality" to Anne Rice. With due respect to Jammer's new role as vox populi, Tyrol tells them all to frack right off, and Cally gets all kicked-dog immediately, like she always does. Tyrol tells her to "forget it" (again), and sends them back to work. It's cool how dirty Tyrol is right now. He looks all demented and unshaven and generally desperation walking, but he's still Chief under all the crazy, so you still want to give him a hug, because you always want to give Chief a hug. ["Finally, something we agree on." -- Strega]
Roslin's all red-eyed in the Med Bay, asking Cottle how much time she has. Oh, hell. She's, like, my favorite actor on this planet and I really, really hate talking about her dying. No matter how Koresh Roslin gets, Mary McDonnell's still the shining jewel in a show full of amazing talent. Cottle's like, "Weeks. A month at the outside." Barf. Roslin paces, and runs behind the privacy curtain. I love how you have to shower with Apollo and Kara all out in the open, but in the doctor's office you still get a screen. Dr. Cottle is about as deflated as we've ever seen him. Roslin comes out of there with her resolute face: "Will I be able to work?" She starts to shake her head with horror as Cottle gives her a thumbs-up prognosis, with the caveat that if the cancer hits her brain, the outlook won't be so rosy. I hate this. I get it, but I hate it.
Apollo, Starbuck and Hotdog are in the Galactica firing range. All the practice sheets have Boomer's face. Nice. It's this kind of shit, people. Starbuck joshes Apollo about his aggressive shooting, and he tells her to shut up, all hardcore. Either he's still pissed about not getting to play with Boomer's Viper, or we missed a scene, or we're meant to infer that he was present somewhere in the last scene. Which, by the way, have we just forgotten about Apollo's relationship with Roslin? It's one of the best things on the show. Starbuck starts giggling, which is never good, talking about how Racetrack is similarly touchy. Apollo makes the valid point that Kara is not exactly Miss Manners, and Starbuck giggles some more about how Apollo's also been riding Chief pretty hard. Officiously, Apollo explains that he merely reminded Chief to keep ship maintenance a priority over this new hobby. Starbuck: "Nice! I'm surprised he didn't take a swing at you." Okay, as a side note? When Kara Fracking Thrace has to explain how to avoid people's touchy spots, you're in what we call a downward spiral. Also, the giggling starts to make a horrific kind of sense as we see the oxygen levels dropping in the firing range.
Off Apollo's dismissive snort about the new fighter's chances at flight, Starbuck bets him 50 cubits it's going to fly, and then allows herself to be baited into volunteering for the virgin flight. Dumb old Hotdog tries to get in on this conversation and is totally rebuffed, because just as with Kara's giggling, Lee reacts to depleted oxygen levels by...guess what? That's right: getting bitchy. They discuss how Starbuck's a full-on danger freak and totally rides the wave of adrenaline or whatever -- all that stuff they always talk about with her and her innate bad-assery because they still have to apologize three times every episode for making her female, and Hotdog is getting very awkward and losing motor skills by the second, because that's how he reacts to asphyxiation -- by getting dumber. I love how even this minor set of character references makes total sense: this is actually how these three people would react to something like this. Kara chortles through calling Lee to task for messing with Chief, who's actually doing something "positive" while everyone else is "standing around whining." There's some of that flirting they do so well, and then dumb old Hotdog collapses. Causing Kara to laugh hysterically, even as they're dropping to his side. "His lips are blue. You look like a blueberry!" she shouts, and as usual, Katee Sackhoff manages to somehow slide through the gap between girlish and ghoulish like she's paper-thin. I'd never thought about that being something you could be good at, but she's so good at it, especially in these very extenuating circumstances. Apollo informs us that "there's no oxygen in here. There's no oxygen in here. There's no oxygen." He follows up this very observant and not at all redundant comment by trying the hatch for a sec and then...throwing himself repeatedly at the window glass like a retarded gypsy moth. I love this man.
After commercial, Starbuck has finally stopped laughing and now looks super-creepy and on death's door. She finds her guns, firing at the hatch window. She misses three times, twice on the lock and once at the window, cracking it, before she's all out. (You're totally in a firing range, but...you know what, never mind. There's a lot going on right now and I respect that.) Then there's a pretty neat choreographed moment where she helps Apollo load an explosive round, and we focus on their hands, together, firing at the weakened window. The hatch explodes open and Starbuck's hand drops, still holding the gun. "Nice shot," she says, and they collapse, this genuinely smiling pair on the gratified carpet.
In CIC, Gaeta tells us what we just saw: Environmental suddenly decided that the firing range was overpressurized, and automatically started bleeding out air. Lee's feeling the drama, all, "Two more minutes, and we'd have been dead." Adama moans about all the ongoing computer trouble, and Gaeta tells us they've figured out the problem. Tigh goes, "What is that?" (Remember that for later. That's twice.) Gaius Baltar is suddenly on the scene, looking bughouse as usual, and explains that it's a "Cylon logic bomb" -- a "heuristic computer virus...capable of learning, evolving...waiting to be activated." "Heuristic," in this context, means pretty much everything implied by the phrase "logic bomb," does it not? Gaius, because he can be awesome, goes on: "No doubt left behind when the Cylons infiltrated the network Colonel Tigh set up the day you were shot, sir." Heh. Adama, not getting the "learning and evolving" part of it, goes, "That was [at the beginning of the season, although he says] weeks ago! Why now?" Gaeta explains about basic network encryption and goes over the "learning and evolving" part again, and also points out that the stuff with the electrical and environmental systems is a toddler way of testing its control. "How do you kill it?" asks Adama, who is rad. Gaius calls this the tricky part: "If it's a Cylon virus, it is extremely difficult to eradicate," and, like, he should know, because he's got one in his head. And probably in his trousers, come to think of it. Adama says he's pretty lucky, because there's an expert on board, and for a second I'm scared he means Mr. Squirrely Vice-President himself, which would doom us all, but then he gets all chilling and goes, "Tell Helo to run this past our prisoner."
I do not like Adama and Boomer interacting. It's too messy. Sometimes literally. But mostly I know he's got to get through a whole bunch of shit before he can actually deal with the fact of her, and it means everything takes twice as long, because everything ends up coming back to Boomer, and she makes his brain run slower, because of the PTSD. If I were Boomer and I saw Adama on Caprica, I would have dropped to my knees immediately and put his gun to my head, because that's the only way you get a guy like that to chill out, because he's totally not going to kill you execution-style in front of his kid and both your boyfriends. If you don't force it, he's going to strangle you and then be mad about it forever. Which is what has happened. But then, Boomer's a robot, so maybe she wouldn't know that. So she said, like, "Hi," and then acted all long-suffering when he freaked out on her, and she's still doing it.
Tyrol's trying to get the new ship's wing on, cursing it. And, like, does he work? Because everybody else is working right now, and he's doing his hobby. Is this poor management on his part, or his day off, or what? If you work in the Fleet, I don't think you should get a day off. You could use the siesta system popular in Central and South America, maybe, but not a day off. Figurski watches Tyrol go nuts and then approaches, in his grizzled constabulary fashion, to help, but Chief tells him he's got it. Figurski argues and helps, as Jammer and Cally watch. As the lights flicker -- important! -- Jammer comes to help. Up above on the second level, Adama watches the pit crew working together. Somewhere behind that flinty old face, a hamster starts running on a wheel, first slowly and then faster.
Walking toward CIC, Dualla reports about the continuing power spikes and equipment failures all over the place. Tigh gets all "up our alert status" and "put our damage-control teams on standby," like he invented the concepts. I mean, I'm not tossing shade his way indiscriminately; he's right. But, like, Hotdog could have figured that out. Adama agrees, but not yet. He asks Tigh if he's seen the Chief's ship, which Tigh calls the "imaginary fighter." They get into a fight about how it doesn't really matter if it ends up flying, but explaining hope and esprit de corps to Tigh is like telling a baby all about Roth IRAs. Tigh does give a necessary viewpoint in this scene, pointing out that humanity's survival kind of depends on a certain amount of focus here, and suggests that they shut down this "pipe dream." Adama recognizes the wisdom of this, but defers it a while: "...This project, it's giving them something. I'm not going to take that away. Until I have to." Because that's his big thing: doing whatever he can to keep people's belief in the future alive. Even when it means telling them HUGE WHOPPING LIES and giving long-ass speeches that make no sense that he makes up AS HE GOES ALONG.
In the exercise room, Dualla is explaining yet again that Dr. Cottle has cleared her of any long-term effects from her total lack of injuries sustained. She feels like hitting something, she explains to Lee -- who is packing some guns, as if nobody's noticed by now. They engage in the dance we've known as long as time, which is called in the present-day "But I've Never Played Pool Before; Could You Give Me Some Pointers?" Then they throw each other around and grunt and are half-naked and it is totally excellent. Lee's got this whole thing about being very damn sexy with his pseudo-sisters and nobody else. He comes at her with a plastic "knife" that looks like a vamp stake, and they throw each other around and she lands him solidly on his back, strips his knife, and then Lee gets all assertive for once, knocking her arms out from under her so that she falls on top of him. They consider each other for a sec and it is awesome. Then there's a knock-knock and Billy's at the door (Billy! Hi Billy!) and he's like, "Um, hi." And Dualla runs off to him and it's no harm, no foul. Yet. Poor Billy doesn't know that his beautiful green-eyed Anastasia Dualla is the Summer Roberts of this show and is totally going to take over and be central to the plot in about five minutes, which means hooking her up with Lee for real. Don't tell him. I hate when he gets sad.
Helo's talking to Boomer through her cell phone. (See what I did there?) He starts with some light-hearted material: "Do you have actual memories of being with the Chief before the Cylon attack?" That's pretty much completely below the belt, although I understand his need to clarify this stuff. On the other hand, her reaction to Chief back on Caprica pretty much answered every fracking question he might have, but whatever. Boomer: "Yeah." Helo makes that face he makes. Boomer's like, "Sorry, dude. On the other hand, you asked." Helo's not done: "Do you still love him?" Which is three questions. The first one is, "How does this whole Cylon thing actually work?" and it's valid. The second one is, "Is it weird having your ex-boyfriend in the same apartment complex?" and it's valid too. But the third question is bullshit, because it basically resolves down to: "You mean you weren't a virgin when we started dating?" I'd be like, "Look, Dawson, get your jealous ass out of here until you have some kind of insecurity net or I'm going to make you wish you'd never made it off Caprica. Your drama is nothing but rage to me, because you're now questioning my commitment to you, and my love for you, and that makes me feel like I'm not doing a good job of showing how much I love you. Which is your whole point here, because you're being a manipulative, vapid child. Trust me or don't, but don't act like I even have the option of vamping into the hangar bay in a raincoat with nothing underneath. Not to mention the fact that I've seen Tyrol, like, twice since they came to get us, and neither time was all that conducive to romance. This is about you and him and has nothing to do with me, and I know the whole 'there are many copies' thing is blowing your mind, but I love you, and that's all I got. I know it's hard being one of the two toasterfuckers on board -- not secretly counting Gaius -- but I get out of here? It's on a fracking leash. A literal leash, okay? Keep some perspective." But Boomer's a better robot girlfriend than I could ever be. Um, if I were a girl. And a robotic assassin. She tells him, "Helo. You're the father of my child. You're the first in my heart. And nothing is ever going to change that." Which is basically the same thing, only, you know, nice. He smiles sweetly, because that's all he needed, because boys are easy.
Having resolved his romantic angst for the moment, Helo's ready for the order of business, namely: the fact that everybody is going to die. He shows her the clipboard with the offending Cylon code, which I find iffy in terms of protocol, because she said she doesn't have counterprogramming back on Caprica but to her it's like reading a menu, this code, and there's the slight chance she'll go all Manchurian again. At least that's my first reaction, as an outside possibility, especially when she goes all stiff and creepy, staring and staring at the code. As Helo yells her name, she drops the phone and gets a robot migraine. Then she picks it up again: "I need to talk to Commander Adama. Right now." She validates Gaius's theory and tells Helo that the virus will be turning Galactica's systems against the crew, doing all kinds of nasty things, not to mention the beacon she's still transmitting. Helo, rather ingenuously, protests that this would harm Boomer and the baby, and she waves this away, calling herself a liability and a mistake. Which I first thought was a continuity glitch, until I realized that as far as she knows, the Cylons don't know about the baby, period, so she's just a turncoat that stuck out her thumb first chance she got. Sharon reiterates the point that the logic bomb will be going off in a matter of hours and that this will open up the Galactica to an attack, in addition to being an attack on its own, and also lead the Cylons to the whole Fleet. (But wait, they do know about the baby, Number Six was all awesome about the baby, so pretty and excited and cool (I love Six; we haven't talked about her in this episode so you might not know that), so actually Helo's right, and this doesn't completely make sense. I don't know.)
Back from commercial, we open on...Lots of Raiders, again. Now that we know for sure about them, beyond the general creepiness, the fact it's been happening all through the episode ratchets up the tension significantly.
Adama busts into Boomer's cell. Sharon once more tries to act like she and Adama are both people, addressing him politely only to be cut off with a "Whatever it is you have to say, make it quick."
With the whole crew standing around and working, Apollo mentions to Starbuck that the cockpit on the new fighter is too far back, which will lead to "CG problems when you maneuver." I think he's trying to be supportive, but it's got a certain Lee Adama spin on it. Even Apollo can't bring them down, though; Kara's like, "We're not going for maneuverability, Captain, we're going for speed." Apollo begins an indelicate metaphor regarding the fighter's having its "cockpit rammed up its [redacted]," but (poorly) executes a spit-take trail-off when Dualla comes sliding out from its underside, where she's been rewiring the comms system. She exhibits the same grace and amusement she employed so skillfully back at the beginning with Billy, and Lee goes all crosseyed.
Figurski ten huts Tigh into the bay, as the lights flicker badly and Hotdog stares slack-jawed at nothing while pretending to work. Tigh bitches pointlessly at nobody and, despite Starbuck's best efforts to send him off the wrong way, goes to find Tyrol.
Finding him in the Tool Room, Tigh harasses Tyrol: "What's that?" Chief's hooking up a still, lying that it's for solvent: "To clean machine parts." Tigh gets a good line in: "Solvent my ass. I know a still when I smell it." He does not add, "Sometimes I think it's me, for a second, or my harridan of a wife, but I do know a still when I smell it." Tyrol admits that he's making booze, but says it's for barter. He needs parts for the new fighter, but all his scrounging won't get him engines (the new fighter has two), and he doesn't want to ask Adama for permission to get them from the wrecks. Tigh gives Tyrol some shit about how it's never going to fly anyway, but Tyrol -- even dirtier and less shaven and more pathetic than before -- simply says he's at least got to try. "What's the point?" asks Tigh (3). Even though Adama already told him, Tyrol makes it personal, saying in a very compelling (and hug-inviting) manner that it's all he's got left. Like in the entire universe. Tigh, knowing a thing or two about desperation, reassesses, and tells Tyrol that he's just remembered something: "I promised the XO of the Baah Pakal I'd help him out...He's got some obsolete DDG-62 engines taking up space on his flight deck. They're probably crap, but I told him that I would have a crew in there to haul 'em out as soon as possible." First of all, that was, while unnervingly cool, totally in character. He always backs down if you show him feelings, because feelings are his Kryptonite. And secondly, I wonder what all the other XOs think about old Tigh. I really do. But mostly, that was really cool. Tyrol softens: "Glad to be of help, sir." Tigh makes stern faces and gets out a clipped "Good" before stealing a bottle of the moonshine and leaving the Tool Room. Where normally he belongs, but not today.
Adama notifies Roslin that the shuttle back to her ship is ready, and she thanks him again for letting her use his quarters while aboard. Which is a dubious sign of respect indeed, considering what a pigsty his quarters usually are. She thinks a second, and then pulls out the book he gave her a long time ago. He protests that it was a gift, and she rehashes his whole "never lend a book" philosophy, to which I also subscribe, but lamely concludes, "I've had it far too long. It belongs in your collection." It's complicated, because they so recently reached détente, on Caprica, and this is coming across as a sign of disrespect or something, when in fact she's going to be dead soon and might not see him again. He makes a sad face, but I don't know for which reason: he's intuitive enough to have figured it out, which means that by not bringing it up, he's being more respectful toward her than he ever has. On the other hand, maybe he thinks that with her going back to her official territory, they can't be friends any more, and she's giving him a gentleman's sign that we're going to revert to their guarded Season 1 relationship. Whatever it is, I hate it, because I don't want Roslin to die. Due to Adama's weird pause after she did her whole book-returning thing, she says lightly, "I'm late for a Quorum meeting. Is there a problem?" And yeah, there is, and Adama lays it out neatly: "Our computers have been infected by a Cylon virus, corrupting systems throughout the entire ship. I've just been notified that this is a prelude to an all-out attack by the Cylons." Roslin sits her presidential ass right down and, after ascertaining that Gaeta and (urgh) Gaius are on the case, admits that she can't really be of aid at this point, beyond giving Adama her moral support. She says it in a subtly funny way, but it also reestablishes their relationship after the faux faux pas with the book. He tells her that he's actually looking for her advice. Which is a nice blow out of the scene, but also erases the last of the tension between them, which means she's going to be dead so fast.
At CIC, listen to Tigh: "You want to what?" (4) Gaeta wants to erase the drives and restart the ship using backups from before everything went to hell. Tigh points out that this will leave them defenseless until the system comes back up, and then immediately retreats to Adama's authority just in case someone questions him: "The Commander will never go for this." Luckily, Gaeta and Gaius have already talked to Adama about it, and he's considering it. I love this combination -- when it takes place outside the restroom and isn't totally creepy, of course. They're both so prickly and smart and passive and focused and kinda prissy, and it's so, so nice to see. Especially if their joint project involves busting Tigh's nuts. Tigh snaps at Gaius, again with the spurious power-by-proxy, about how "the Commander told you to stay out of this," which we didn't see, and I don't know why he would do that, but I'm sure Gaius was being irritating as usual and Adama just couldn't handle it. Gaius: "I'm sorry, do you want to survive this one or not, Colonel?" It's wonderfully played, this; a vastly more catty companion to Gaeta's insubordination earlier in the episode. This time -- and I can't help wondering if it's because Adama's all the way over in his quarters -- Tigh lets it go, advising that the Fleet jump immediately before this happens, to buy them time. Sounds reasonable, but Gaeta points out that Galactica is becoming increasingly hostile as the virus takes over, and that they might end up jumping into a sun. Gaius and Gaeta -- knowing that you sometimes have to lead Tigh by the hand, trade lines like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, reminding him about the signal they're also transmitting, which puts them up against two separate deadlines that both point right to: GAME OVER.
Adama explains to Roslin about his visit to Boomer, leaving out how totally rude he was to her, and says she's offered a possible solution. Roslin puts her finger on it: "And you're wondering if you can trust her." He admits that he came close to strangling Boomer yet again while he was in there, and Roslin nods grimly. You know she's thinking, "I haven't thrown anyone's ass out an airlock in weeks." Adama angsts about how he's even thinking about doing something so nuts as to agree to use the help this woman has offered. And yeah, it's a lot more iffy if you don't buy that she's not transmitting to the Boomerplex, but I do, which means she's in the same danger as the whole Fleet, not to mention that damned toaster baby. "We both know the Cylons are experts at manipulation. They will do anything to confuse you," says Roslin, with a lot of her signature pregnant pauses. She's such a joy to watch. She makes me want to be an actor. Adama protests, somewhat obliquely, that this Boomer is not the one who shot him, which is kind of tangential to what she just said, but it gives Roslin the opportunity to give a particularly airlock-esque speech: "Can they really be that different from one another? Commander, if you're asking me if it's possible that your judgment's been clouded by your history with this particular Cylon model, well, I'd have to say yes. But..." There's a long pause again, and Roslin allows as how "We created them. There's always a chance we might find common ground." Besides how she's going to die, forever, just like you all, unless you fix this?
Boomer is led through the ship with about a thousand guards. Everybody in the corridors makes all kinds of mean faces, like at the end of Cruel Intentions, and the lights are going crazy. I keep my eyes peeled for Cally, because that would just be weird if she shot another one. Sharon's on a leash at the end of a pole, and she's handcuffed, and it's demeaning. In CIC, everybody stares at her all mean. Nobody moves. Nobody breathes. "We need to work quickly. We're on borrowed time," Sharon says. Adama looks at Tigh and Gaius, and Tigh shakes his head. Since his opinion is the opposite of a good idea, usually, Adama immediately orders her released. Like she's a worthwhile person with a mind and soul and feelings, Sharon turns to Dualla. "Dee, do you still carry your father's pocket knife?" Dee immediately looks at Adama, because that's weird in context, but also sad in how much it implies about their past personal relationship. Adama orders her to hand over the knife, and Dualla makes the perfect, perfect face as she does so -- this inscrutable mix of sad, weirded-out, pissed, and a heaping helping of OMG. Boomer asks Gaeta for a fiber-optic com link, and does not specify that it should be as small in diameter as possible. She explains she also needs all-frequency broadcast capability and a direct link to the ship's mainframe. Again, Adama assents. Gaeta gives the exact right response as well, handing her the link cable with a "Right here, Sharon." She's thankful for that. So am I. It might be the loveliest moment in the episode, for me. His grace here -- it says so much about the kind of man he really is.
About a billion Raiders jump in and Gaeta says some Gaeta Talk: "Dradis. Here they come. Multiple targets. Bearing 371 carom 552. Cylon Raiders." I recognize, like, one noun and one adjective of all that. Tigh points out that the "bastards tracked us, all right." Why is he here? Adama launches the Vipers, and we get to see all the pilots running through the bay to their ships, all activated, which I always love to see in any show or movie. Apollo and Hotdog talk about how the Raiders are establishing and holding a formation pattern. A lovely Chippendale pattern, actually. Tiny lights in Harlequin diamonds. I think it's meant to work like a fence, or a net, to catch the fleet. It's very pretty. I like shiny stuff? Sharon cuts the base of her hand with Dualla's knife, meaning something totally gross is going to happen in a second. Tigh: "What the hell?" (6) Sharon's bleeding and it's awful. She explains, kind of: "Okay, this is how it's going to work. The Raiders are going to send a signal to activate the virus. It could take a few seconds. On my mark, initiate the computer wipe. Miss the window..." And Gaeta supplies the answer, which is: flesh peels, eyeballs run, everybody dead. Sharon: "Yeah. Sometimes you gotta roll the hard six. Right, Commander?" It's hardest watching her interact with her old shipmates, because she can't be expected to change her perspective as harshly as they have, so she relates like they don't viscerally hate her, and that's tough. She inserts the fiber-optic cable deep into her hand and up her arm. Tigh: "What the hell is she doing?" (7, douchebag.) The Raiders go all red with the exterminate lights of old, and Dualla and Gaeta explain that they've made contact with the system and that there's nothing they can do. Tigh: "We gotta stop this." (8) Adama and Gaeta are cool, though, all ready to execute the wipe when it's time. Boomer gives the mark, Adama gives the order, and we learn that it's still called "reformatting" even in a galaxy far away with octagon TVs. We cut to the Vipers, where Apollo is mystified by the great big nothing that the Raiders are doing.
Boomer continues to bleed and Tigh continues to bitch and moan about how they're all going to die.
Out in space, Hotdog and Apollo and Duck get ready to fight, noting how there are a billion Raiders there, about to kill them. Tigh screams on and on about how the continued attack means it was all a setup. Boomer's eyes roll back in her head, but not from sarcasm: it's because she's a freaky robot chick doing freaky computer stuff. Adama marshals a gun from a nearby Marine and holds it to her head, threatening, "If they're coming for you, they're gonna be very disappointed." Which is fine and I get it, although that would be quite a maneuver, getting in and out with Boomer in tow while this intense space battle massacre is going on, but she's eliminated the immediate threat to her personally, as far as Galactica going all HAL on them. Tigh, of course, screams "Do it!" because he is useless. Everybody stares and nobody moves. Tigh whines, "What are you waiting for?" "This," says Boomer, and it's very impressive, this moment, in a very old-school Claremont ass-kicking kind of way: all the Galactica systems come back online, Boomer collapses, and outside, all the Raiders start drifting and crashing into each other. Tigh: "What the hell?" (9) Gaeta reads off his panel that they've just transmitted a signal, and Apollo phones in that the Raiders are all going wacky. Tigh: "What the hell?" (That's 10. Pull your head out of your ass and proceed directly to outer space without a helmet.)
Adama knows, though. They've just sent the Raider fleet a little virus of their own. Tigh gives CAG Apollo the go-ahead to start blowing the entire jump to hell, which is nice as a catharsis for the pilots but kind of sucky as far as utility: at worst, they're scrap metal, plus the fact that once you scoop out their brains (which, let's talk about that a second), they're basically just ships like any other fighter-class ship, which we're at this point building by hand.
Starbuck and Apollo are very happy in their blue fighter light. All the pilots say that silly Top Gun "Wooooo-hoo-hoo!" and "Got this toaster padlocked!" stuff that pilots are compelled to say when shit blows up. Apollo says something like "This...this is payback." For what? Coming to kill you today? Well, I guess he's got a personal beef right now due to the strangling almost to death earlier today, so I'll allow it. Also there's destroying his whole civilization.
Back in CIC, Adama orders the Marines to take "this thing" back to her cell, so I guess we've made no interpersonal headway there. But I guess strategically he had about a thousand scenarios running, between the restart and the Raider drift, including Sharon's killing him some more, taking over the entire ship herself, keeping the system offline long enough for them all to die, and so on. But the thing is, he at least knew her official plan, which is more than we got.
In the hangar, Tyrol is having trouble reaching a connection up inside the new fighter. Cally helps him, and even though he's nicer to her than he has been since she came out of the brig, she's still not sure if they're cool. "Ship's got more than one engine. Get to it," he says gruffly, and she smiles, because everything's okay. I'm not as happy about this as you might be, because she totally shot Sharon, but I just thought about what it would be like if Chief were pissed at me, and I'd totally freak out.
Starbuck's getting all manic because they're so close to finishing the fighter, but they're out of metal for the hull. Helo comes walking in with a bright idea.
We cut to some time later, and the thing is finished and it's very pretty. It looks very industrial, kind of stealth fighter-y, all line and angle and strange black skin. I think Helo used to work for Nissan. Lee and Kara congratulate Helo on the idea of using "carbon composite," and Lee notes that this will make it hard to see on dradis, which is of course French for "Space Radar."
Starbuck's in the launch bay checking her instruments. Dualla clears the "Blackbird" for launch, and at the risk of a second X-Men reference in one episode: Ha! Totally! As we go through the usual checks and clearances and jargon, Starbuck curses at the Blackbird quietly, begging it not to kill her. Finally, she launches, and it's very Voltron, very zoomy and Freudian, and Dualla calls it over comm: "Blackbird is away." It's kind of thrilling.
Starbuck's having trouble controlling the Blackbird, but since Starbuck is God's Frigging Gift to Aeronautics, nobody will believe that, so Apollo yells at her for showing off and they bicker. She finally stabilizes and thanks the Lords, then flares and disappears with a Whoo! Unable to locate Starbuck, Apollo gets concerned. His voice gets up into registers we haven't heard since the mini-series, when his voice was six octaves higher than it usually is these days. Tyrol, in particular, is worried, because if the Blackbird won't sing, that means his life is just as over as it was when he figured out about Helo and Boomer. Dualla reports that there's still no dradis contact, and Apollo shrieks some more. Dualla and Gaeta are very worried, and then Tyrol is very worried as Apollo asks quietly, "Kara, are you okay?" That part kind of got to me.
Starbuck comes in dark, floating up before Apollo, and then turns on her interiors, smiling as usual like a total lunatic: "Of course you lost contact. It's a damned stealth ship, remember?" Everyone in the bay -- which is everyone -- applauds as the music swells. Lee starts screaming at her like a fishwife, but she just laughs, beautiful and triumphant. ["Tigh: Jacob :: Starbuck: me." -- Strega] ["And vice versa, like, you think Tigh's fine and I think Starbuck is super-stupendous, which is somehow the weirder part in my opinion. You'd think we'd at least find each other's nemeses slightly irritating or something." -- Jacob]
Later, everybody's in full rank and file and in ceremony dress. Figurski "Commander on deck"s Roslin into the hangar. Chief nods to Laura and introduces her to the Blackbird. "Madam President, this is an honor." She goes the modesty route, saying that the honor is hers, and that the Blackbird is "remarkable." He out-modesties her with a respectful "Just a ship, ma'am." Cally and the other crew sign their Blackbird -- even Hotdog -- as Roslin gives a short speech: "After what we've been through, it would be very easy to give up, to lose hope. But not here. Not today. This is more than a ship, Chief. This is an act of faith. It is proof that despite all we've lost, we keep trying. And we will get through this, all of us, together. I promise." Everybody stands at attention, wondering why Roslin's giving the usual speech Adama gives them, but noticing how it makes a lot more sense, on a word-by-word basis. Tyrol offers Roslin a bottle of champagne and then slips a sheet off the nose of the Blackbird, revealing it's to be christened the Laura. Roslin is in tears, and I'm...see, this show gets to me the way that only old-school West Wing gets to me. Buffy. Farscape, even. You see it coming from a mile away and then POW! They get you anyway. Bastards. And then on a meta level they get you again, because: she's so dead, dude. The whole crew of the Galactica giving her this military honor out of nowhere? Come on. Laura tries to speak, finally choking out a simple "Thank you."Adama invites her to "do the honors," and she's lovable and bumbling as she figures out what that means. She rears back with the bottle of champagne and rushes forward, and everyone freaks out because it's like the only bottle of champagne left in the entire universe, and she giggles. "Kidding." It's a very funny, cute moment. Adama turns with approval to look at Tigh, who's like, "I'd fucking kill her myself." Roslin opens the bottle cutely, like a tipsy librarian, and hands it off. Tyrol takes a big old gulp. Racetrack makes amends with Helo under the guise of congratulating him on the carbon composites, and then she and the other pilots and crew shake his hand. Toasterfuckers 2, Haters 0.
Roslin and Adama steal a few feet away, Laura gratefully telling him, "That was lovely." Adama makes the point that the crew wanted to do it for her. "None of this would have been possible if you hadn't trusted the Cylon," she points out. I don't think either of them really gets the entire point, there. Adama: "I took your advice, met on common ground." Roslin cocks her head at him: "What was that?" Gun to the head. "We both wanted to live." Jackass. That's the one thing you'll always have in common.
Tyrol watches the crowd, and then goes to Boomer's cell. I'm pleased by this. She's so pretty but somehow especially pretty tonight, even though she's wearing sweats. It's weirdly very much like the outfit of the fake Number Six that talked all different and pretended to be a figment in Gaius's head. In that very cell, actually. I guess everybody looks the same in sweats, except if you're on Galactica it's understood that you look like everybody else, only one hundred times hotter. Tyrol and Boomer stare at each other and she picks up the phone, staring at him. He thinks, and finally picks up the phone. She stares at him and he puts it to his ear. She smiles a tiny smile.
Awesome.
week's the finale, and that hardcore Maquis lady is going to show up and the number of people in the Fleet is going to change drastically and I think everything is going to change drastically, so grab your gun and bring in the cat, because this one's big. Boom boom boom.