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The Suckening continues, as chapter two of what I'm hoping is only a triptych of spec script bullshit gives Colonel Fisk an abrupt personality makeover, then kills him brutally. Roslin has noticed a shadow economy taking place right under their noses that everyone else has been aware of since, like, "Bastille Day," and decides that it's a bad idea. Investigation of Fisk's murder leads Apollo to a leader of the underworld, a scary dude who runs his rackets from the off-grid freighter Prometheus. We also learn about not one but two retroactively established fake girlfriends for Apollo. The first is his baby mama, who was presumably killed during the Big One after she told him she was pregnant and he told her to go to hell. (Isn't that dark? Can you even believe Apollo would do something like that? It's so deep.) But wait! The second just-invented girlfriend is a single-mum prostitute on Cloud 9, who is boring as hell and, you know, gets in over her head after trying to get black-market antibiotics for her kid or whatever. (At the end of the episode she actually says, out loud, that she is naught but a replacement for Girlfriend #1, that she will never be that girl, and that he is only trying to assuage his guilt over leaving her in the lurch by trying to father her child. Out loud, she says this.)
Oh, and the reason I haven't mentioned anybody else in the cast is that they only got about five seconds of screentime between them: it's all Apollo, all the time, living some tool's adolescent fantasy of what it would be like to be really, really badâ¦but also a hero. In other words, Sin City in space. Like, Apollo gets a pass for shooting the underworld boss guy, because he's worth killing, because he's running a child slavery and prostitution ring. You ask why I hate science fiction? This crap is why. That's the emotional depth of what we're dealing with here. The whole episode is like that: a weird mishmash of barely-remembered '80s cop movies, the very, very crappiest Frakes and Garibaldi and Kenicki episodes of TNG and Babylon 5, and a bunch of unnecessary bullshit that not only ignores but outright contradicts previously established emotional continuity. I say: why use or even reference established character continuity and plot points from less than a month ago to explain Apollo's continuing decompensation, when you can impute mysterious appearing pregnant and disappearing hooker girlfriends, cold-blooded murder, two-dimensional cardboard underworld crap, and a complete lack of emotional arc? And week? Same deal, but with Starbuck. For frack's sake. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
"How do you keep raising the bar?" I said. "Story logic is secondary to the emotional tracking," I said. "Jacob would make twenty-four pages of kissy noises about this show if it was forty-five minutes of various spaceship exteriors followed by Colonel Tigh repeating the phrase 'what the hell' over and over for fifteen minutes," you said. We were wrong, we were wrong, we were wrong. There's little to no emotional resonance here, and of what there is, only maybe 30% proceeds from what's come before. Bad story logic is replaced here by simply bad storytelling. Good acting is marred by nonsensical plot and unreadable dialogue. The politics I promised to talk about this week have disappeared from the show for the week. And to disclaim -- this is no "my show is broken": as I wrote to a friend earlier today, the slack we cut is that we keep watching at all, and that the trust and love of the show continues into week. But in order to earn the glassy-eyed adoration I normally give you here, I have to be honest about the downside, too: it lends gravity to the entire enterprise. What this means, though, the end result, is that there's no in, no personal connection, which promises to make this what they call in the West Wing a process story. Which is fine, but stop me if you've heard it before. Like any precious Anglophile Diana-obsessed Americans, my family's motto is "Never complain, never explain." Sorry, Grandma. I'm doing both this week.
The mandate for this episode is simple, and welcome: simultaneously address Apollo's building tension and moral development, the economic confusions of a society in crisis, and the relationship between the military/government and the civilian world in a time of relative wartime respite. Start looking at those private apocalypses we talked about last week, both in Lee Adama himself and in the entire Fleet. See what opportunism arises in the civilian quarter when the walls come down and the world ends. Take a little shine off that halo, get a little seedy. Take Apollo's "man of the people" routine to its logical, scary terminus. Rebuild a relationship with the Admiral that has never existed before -- that literally took the end of the world in order to gain meaning. Continue Apollo's development into some kind of space-noir detective, which is variably interesting but at least gives him a purpose beyond getting dicked around by the authority figure du jour. The elements are there, the elements are good. The execution is beyond shoddy, with occasional glints of that familiar brilliance. It takes a concept that would have benefited the entire mass of current stories and themes, and cuts it off from them all, as effectively as bombing the Resurrection Ship. It could have mirrored Helo's and Gaius's continued distancing from human concerns, Boomer's willingness to trade personal freedom for the safety of her loved ones, Roslin's post-resurrection euphoria and aggression, Fisk's inability to regain his humanity, Six's ongoing inability to distance herself from the otherwise-occupied Gaius, Gina's quadruple-agency, Billy's and Dualla's fragile new relationship, Chief's newfound drifting compass-free lovelessness. Instead, it parallels a bunch of shit invented five minutes before this episode begins -- and they're crappy sci-fi pulp staples, all, at that. This is not the party we were invited to; this is not what it said on the box.
We begin in the Medias Res Lounge of the off-grid freighter Prometheus. The implied "fire" Lee will be bringing back to Galactica is, I believe, organized crime and general seediness. Apollo's got a gun trained on a man named Phelan, a bad man with a droopy face, a gifted character actor named Bill Duke you might remember from...every television show made in the last thirty years, and half of the movies. Phelan stands to look Apollo in the eye: "You're not going to shoot. You're not like me." Lee stares him down.
Forty-eight hours earlier, for no damn reason, a woman arises from her bed in the Cloud 9 suite L258. Her name is pronounced like "Siobhan," so that's what we're calling her. Her bedmate, who is Apollo, wakes up and starts begging her not to leave. This seems relatively unlikely, since it's her apartment and not his. She curls up into his chest and -- apologizing for "leaving," because she thought he was still asleep -- hears all about how if he holds up the Raptor shuttle back to Galactica, Tigh will have his ass. Rather than getting out her laptop for a quick drabble about the subject, she replies that said ass "currently belongs to [her]." Apollo smiles, and they get nuzzly. I think it's great that Apollo has a girlfriend, but they sure are cozy considering it's a pretty difficult calculus figuring out when this intense ass-owning love affair had time to start, much less bloom.
Later, Roslin's holding court, the Adamas, Dr. Baltar, and Colonel Fisk in attendance. The men all stand when she stands, due to the enormous importance of chivalry on this show, historically. When she gives them leave to sit, it's interesting that Fisk immediately plops down from his half-rise, while Adama lingers straight-backed, sitting last. Fisk congratulates Roslin on her "remarkable recovery"; Baltar looks sketchy and vile. "Remarkable indeed," Roslin extemps, "but now I'm playing catch-up." She fears that, during her bout with cancer, she let some things "slide." She and Bill share a sweet, relieved moment, and Roslin keeps it moving: "Supplies are running low, and the people are worried." Rather than asking for a summary of the actual economics of the Fleet, which would help us all out, Fisk simply pops a luscious grape into his mouth and smirks, "Well, they wouldn't be civilians if they didn't have something to bitch about." Fisk is a man who lined up civilians and shot them, yes, but he's also a man who felt so bad about it that he blabbed to the first non-Pegasus crewman who showed him a little kindness and a glass of booze. "Well," sterns Roslin, "I think that, in this case, they're entitled. Our inventory levels are tight, but they're not critical." Throughout, Fisk keeps looking to Adama for saving, making him even more like the über-Tigh than we thought.
Roslin explains that, "across the Fleet, people are reporting shortages of essential goods" and that "what they do get comes at a high price." Adama and Fisk realize that she's talking about the black market, and Fisk makes a great "Duh, really?" face. Roslin relates the personally tragic story about how an aide got pneumonia and Billy had to trade liquor for antibiotics. Fisk pops another delicious, juicy grape and bottom-lines it: "It's the nature of the beast. People want what they want." I appreciate the irony of him tossing this off while rolling around indolently in the lap of luxury, but this actually does a greater disservice to the very concerned President and Admiral, because the effect created is that they're being incredibly disingenuous. Any other week, I'd say that was on purpose -- but here? Anyhow, Roslin gets the barter system, thanks, but she's talking about "criminals making outrageous demands on the people," and so she wants to create a new Fleet-wide trade policy: "We need to be in control of our supply chain, not black-market thugs." That's the whole of the trade policy, as far as we'll ever know. She asks for military support, and Fisk -- again not getting any other concepts beyond "civilians suck and are for shooting" -- is proud to offer the Pegasus's support in blowing "these dogs" to hell. God, he's the new Tigh. Adama ignores him, offers his unconditional help, and says it's good to have Roslin back. She smiles gorgeously and says it's good to be back. Dismissed, Gaius and Fisk stand and look at each other incredibly sketchily.
Outside, Fisk and Baltar have made apparently close friends, which makes total sense. They've both got beef with Madame, even though there's a misogynist undertone with Fisk that proves Cain went completely Clytemnestra a long time ago. He wonders if Roslin's always so "right in your face," and Baltar allows as how her "last-minute resurrection" has proven invigorating. I believe and expected it, but what we got in that office seemed like classic Roslin to me; we have to assume that a lot of her worse days weren't shown, I guess, since they're not the most thrilling television. Or because this entire episode seems to think that women are all frail neurasthenics without independent will. Fisk loves being treated like a person, and wonders aloud to Baltar whether Roslin even honestly believes her "made-up plans and regulations are going to change anything." He has a point, but also an agenda, given his body-language comfort with the black-market concept. "As if we don't have enough to do," hums Baltar superciliously. Honestly, what is it that you do, Gaius? Build mystery machines that don't work, invade people's personal space in bathrooms, shoot military officers from behind, and masturbate in public. Sorry if the burden of governance is going to cut into that busy schedule. He tips his hand a bit here: "Madame President sets a great prestige by her office," he self-indicts deliriously, "and Adama supports her, at least for the moment." Fisk: "Well then, so do I, just for the moment." They discuss the cigars Fisk had delivered to Baltar recently, which were much enjoyed, and Fisk takes off, looking forward to their meeting. I love this story -- I've missed schemy political Baltar, and Fisk is just the right balance of powerful and outsider to really connect with it. Too bad he dies two scenes from now.
Cloud 9, Siobhan's suite. Apollo flashes back to his EVA, and then a breakup with a heretofore unknown girlfriend back on Caprica. If you're keeping score, that's not one but two girlfriends we never heard about before. Apollo looks at Siobhan through her vanity mirror as he dresses, and then notices a bottle of antibiotics on the dresser. "I...got them from a friend," Siobhan clearly lies. Her roughly six-year-old daughter Paya (that's three made-up but extremely important spec script-esque characters, ten minutes in, two of whom speak not a single word the entire time), to Apollo's not-quite-stepfatherish but definite boyfriend-to-a-single-mom delight. Paya's fairly sketchy about him, and not just because they look roughly the same age. Rebuffed for a handshake, he digs around for a "special surprise," and I have to say that Bamber (the father of three daughters, for what it's worth) is really, really good at acting with children. You can feel the disappointment and yearning to connect with this little girl, and the pain at her complete lack of interest. Apollo pulls out a deformed dolly with one eye, and Paya utters a tiny screaming gasp before running away. Nice. As a familiar moment in anyone's life, it's pretty devastating, even given my low tolerance for Lee Adama's constantly cracking heart. He gives a nice mix of "well, that went fucking poorly," with top notes of "my stupid doll sucks, and I suck" and all that. Siobhan smiles apologetically, and Apollo is sheepish and sad. Siobhan covers nicely that it was just a surprise for Paya, and they stand about awkwardly. "Look," he stammers, "I'm not sure when I'll be able to make it back." Ah, the old story of the military man forced to occasionally abandon his loved ones for the duties of his career. Siobhan touches his lapel lovingly, and then they both stand there for a second before he remembers, and awkwardly dives for his wallet. Ah, the old story of, um, the man deathly afraid of intimacy who has to rely on prostitutes and their kids for proxied emotional connection. That old Rockwellian chestnut. Siobhan: "Um, I'm gonna have to ask for an extra hundred, since you spent the night." Apollo smiles and pays up. An editor somewhere decides to cut to Paya watching this heartwarming display of capitalism in action.
Briefly, let's talk about sex, baby, in the Fleet, because it colors and confuses a lot of what's to come. We know that prostitution is legal, at least or especially on Cloud 9, which implies a level of sexual health and maturity concomitant with what we've seen across the Fleet in terms of gender equity. If there's no particular sin or taboo that pertains specifically to the female body, then prostitution in the Fleet is along the lines of a transaction, closer to temple prostitution in ancient Rome or the courtesans of Ye Olde Europe, somewhere between above-board stress relief like massage therapy, and the whole Whore + Madonna social status of a Firefly Companion. There's not even a societal/ethical consideration, because 90% of what's wrong with current prostitution has to do with conditions, danger, pimps, union concerns, warping the supply/demand curves, etc. We were given to understand that prostitution was not part of the underworld, in this show, and this was backed up by the gender sociology of the show. I don't think I made this up out of whole cloth, although I'm assuming it's possible that I did. In any case, we were wrong, apparently, because this episode is rife with pimps, danger, and general disapproval of the entire concept. So, sucks to us for assuming that just because prostitution is legal, pimps are pointless. Pimps are, after all, staples of pulpy noir bullshit that isn't even trying.
Never disrobe on the Pegasus, especially if you are a high-ranking officer, because your ass is gonna die. Case in point: Colonel Fisk, who enters his quarters tiredly after a hard day of second-guessing any leader who's not a dangerous sociopath, notices someone in the corner, and almost smiles. "I wondered when you were going to show up." A dude sneaks up behind him, pulls a length of piano wire from a watchlike gadget designed expressly for this purpose and which combines the best features of a fishing reel and a deadly wristwatch, and strangles Fisk. We hardly knew ye, but we only liked ye when ye were drunk. Phelan, from some number of hours in our future, watches this happen, and smokes a luxurious black-market cigar. Credits. 49,597 souls in the Fleet (that's one less than last week. That shit is up to the minute!) We also get the 2001 Toaster Fetus commercial again.
Raptor 129er plays host to a bunch of Apollo's flashbacks (the girlfriend on Caprica, who looks a lot like Kimber from Nip/Tuck; his EVA) and Racetrack brings them in to Galactica. It's clear that Apollo is still verrrrry iffy about spaceflight, which is to be expected. He flashes and flashes and flashes back, in case we missed that he was in a reverie of sorts.
In Galactica sickbay, Cottle is smoking a hilarious grumpy cigarette while preparing for Fisk's autopsy. "I'm just getting started, but from the looks of him, I'd say he was garroted," he says, and somehow avoids putting some spirit fingers on the very dinner-theatre rimshot hilarity of that. He reaches into Fisk's throat and pulls out...a Death's Head Moth! Just kidding, it's a coin. Coins in the Fleet are shaped like octagons, shockingly. Cottle: "Looks like our friend Fisk hit the jackpot." It's like Cottle's the only one who actually gets that they're in a noir this week -- and the only one who thinks it's funny. He's so awesome. Adama and Tigh gawk, and Adama asks to be contacted if Cottle finds anything else. "If I find anything else, I may retire early!" All right, simmer down, Cottle.
Out in the corridor, Adama thinks someone is sending them a message, but Tigh (because he always does) suggests the possibility that it's the Cylons dicking them around. I like that he goes there, because somebody needs to, and I heard the Cylons do have some kind of plan, but if they spent as much time fracking with the Fleet as Tigh seems to think, they would have blown up the Resurrection Ship a long time ago on their own, because these people can be hella boring sometimes. Adama: "I almost prefer that to the alternative. We start killing our own, all they have to do is sit back and watch." Welcome to the last five episodes, Bill. Glad you could join us. The actual shame about this, though, is that the last time somebody said almost exactly this, two episodes ago, everybody got the irony, but now that it's repeated, we have to pretend nobody did, because the irony doesn't seem intentional this time around, he's saying this in earnest, because they've all been replaced for the most part by dullards with no inner life to speak of, plus the Memento disease.
In Adama's quarters, Apollo is asking the usual questions, and Adama is again handing over investigative responsibility for the goings-on. Apollo wonders whether it wouldn't make more sense for "someone from Pegasus" to deal with it, but Adama's wary: "Even though Cain's gone, her influence lingers." He sighs that he needs someone he can trust. "You know," exposits Apollo needlessly, "there were times when that was in short supply between us." Perhaps the invisible hand of the shadow economy created a forced-supply curve and created a black market...of love? Sloppy, sloppy writing. Adama reiterates that they've "both been through an awful lot," and he and Apollo stand and look at each other. "I hope that we've grown stronger for it," Adama says, and for once his psychic powers are off, off, off. Apollo smiles tinily at even the slightest approval from Adama, and Bill watches his frisky and investigative son bop out the door and straight into his doom.
Apollo walks down a long corridor to Fisk's quarters on the Pegasus, where Marines are standing guard. There's a large amount of blood on Fisk's coffee table, which Apollo duly notes before continuing his investigation. He finds a lot of luxury items, including several boxes of cigars from Caprica, and a chest filled with lots of shiny expensive baubles. There's a bracelet he finds particularly interesting -- is it magic? Is it a magic bracelet? Don't tell Ellen Tigh! She loves those. From inside, he can hear Baltar demanding to be let into the room. Apollo pockets the magic bracelet and listens to Baltar doing the usual ("Do you know who I am? I am the Vice-President of the Colonies!") and then, on the door opening, being clearly flummoxed and not particularly happy to see Captain Adama standing inside. "Let him in," says Lee, and Baltar pushes inside, getting kind of amazingly bitchy and nasty: "They were going to let me in." Yes, as a private investigator, I could deduce that from your futile whining. Idiot. Baltar finally notices the totally intense blood everywhere and freaks out. It takes Apollo a while to get the concept of Fisk's murder through Baltar's crazy head. Apollo notes the abundance of Caprican cigars and asks Baltar if they aren't his brand. Baltar's usual poker face -- gobsmacked guilt, terror, paranoia a dull child would flag as weird -- is the response.
Six appears. "Careful, Gaius. You've bought yourself some good will by saving Roslin, but it's fading. Their old suspicions are re-emerging." There's wacky cross-talk, as usual, but even more awkward and counter-intuitive: "What are you doing here...Captain?" Apollo considers the fact that it's even more a valid question for Baltar. Six smiles creepily at Lee as Baltar covers about as well as usual, flipping immediately into "Are you interrogating me?" mode. Sigh. Maybe you could somehow act more paranoid and suspicious, dickweed? Apollo: "This isn't a diplomatic exercise. A man was butchered. His head was practically severed from his body with piano wire." Six slithers around the room, Lee, Baltar: "You're Vice-President of the Fleet. Why are you acting like a child with your hand in the cookie jar, hmm?" Fuckin' word. Six adds, "I wonder what she would say, if she saw you like this." Seriously. Gina's like the only person who doesn't automatically expect this squirrelly, off-putting bullshit from him. Baltar smiles smarmily: "You know, I can't believe it's even necessary for me to explain myself to you..." Way to smooth it over, you fool. Apollo's not buying this mealy-mouthed crap, so Baltar floats the truth: that Fisk had reservations about the Trade Policy stuff, plus a lie: that Baltar was there in his capacity as Veep to assuage him. Smart. I will give him that. Apollo's like, "Fisk was dirty as hell; I'm sure he did have 'reservations.'" They get all in each other's faces and there's another invisible woman in the room, for a second, and her name is Kara Thrace. They mumble worthless parting shots ("I'm sure I can rustle up an alibi, prick" and "Yeah, enjoy the cigars, jackass") but Apollo wins, ordering the Marines outside to escort Baltar back to his ship. Who knows what horrible things he and Fisk were going to talk about -- but then, we never will.
Tigh's in the Galactica hangar reporting to Adama about how the "wireless" is going crazy about the now-famous Fisk murder. "When we lose a command officer aboard a warship," Adama explains, "people are going to be concerned about their security." I see his point, but I might put it more like, "When somebody can waltz into your home and slice your neck with piano wire, regardless of your military commission that is scary." Apollo walks up as Tigh's expositing the concept that when a crew's commander is killed, they can get weird. Lee gives them the latest: "[Fisk's] personal log shows that he was rerouting supply runs, on- and off-loading freighters without command authorization." Cut to Tigh feeling itchy and sad/guilty on any number of levels. It's a great reaction shot. Apollo adds, "He raided the McConnell, and at least a dozen other ships, in the last week. I also found a small warehouse of high-value merchandise in his quarters." Adama realizes the obvious -- that Fisk was working (and apparently creating?) the black market -- and Tigh is weirded out and sick. "Well," says Apollo, "half the Fleet's working it. Fisk was getting greedy." Adama gets sad because of the opportunistic streak that exists in humanity, but that's the point we keep coming back to: barter system okay, artificial supply control bad. Got it. "If he crossed one of his suppliers on a deal, that would explain the cubits that Cottle found," Adama says (I guess he's been watching the TV procedurals with the twins), and Tigh wonders who would have done this, though. Lee, I think picking up on how thrown Tigh is by all this -- and having figured out that Tigh's hands aren't exactly free-trade clean themselves -- turns so that he's facing them both, bringing Tigh into more of an equal place in the conversation. "And they wouldn't be hard to find, even on Galactica."
In fact, they're closer than we think. Flashback to Cloud 9, where Siobhan is complaining to Lee about Paya's worsening cough. "I'll bring her something on my trip," he valiantly promises, and Siobhan notes that, pending another Cylon attack, this could be weeks from now. Lee's clearly affected by the coughing in the other room. Siobhan: "I keep hearing about shortages on the other ships -- people trading anything they can for food and for medicine." Lee's so shocked to learn this obvious thing that he will subsequently forget it again until the scene before this one: "Really?" Siobhan looks in awe of Apollo's naïveté, as one so often does: "Have you seen all the new working girls outside?" The ones who only just now have managed gainful employment? What were they doing previously? There's currency and a capitalist system in place; it's the scarcity that creates the black market, not necessarily any kind of socialism. Maybe the rent is paid, because the numerator is apparently way over the denominator in terms of survivors/berths -- I can see that. But capitalism can cover the rest, and I think it's just the vague language that made this more confusing than it should be. Maybe it's the West Wing factor again, and we're only ever seeing the story at the level of, say, the Federal Reserve, which makes it look like Roslin's responsible for the disposition of food, coffee, etc., when it fact it's just a matter of fair trade between ships. Maybe these are dumb questions, and the truth is staring us in the face, but we shouldn't have to ask them in the first place. It's distracting, and takes a line or two. But we've hit a whole other kind of exposition depot: "Lee, when your baby's crying because it's hungry, you'll do anything to make it stop." Anything? Even...prostitution? Like you were already doing? Apollo comforts Siobhan and they snuggle to the sound of Paya coughing up a lung. He sadly watches her tend to her daughter because it's so, so rough when a black market forces even prostitutes to turn to prostitution.
Lee knocks and enters Tigh's quarters, where he's reclining on the bed with a bottle of whisky on his stomach. I wish we could see those conversations. "Is your wife around, Colonel?" Tigh looks so tiny and old and messed up. I mentioned a while back about how Mary McDonnell can shrink or grow to fit her role -- same thing here. We've seen him looking fit and nice, even humbled and repentant ("Scattered"); we've seen him strong and imposing ("33"), and we've seen him vital and overheated ("Tigh Me Up..."), but we've never seen him so...tired, and crusty, and withered and old. Apollo reveals that the magic bracelet belongs to Ellen (hee!), and Tigh pretty clearly lies that she lost it "a couple weeks ago." He asks where "the hell" Lee found it, and Lee admits that it was on Pegasus. Tigh hems and haws and snuffles, scared. Apollo picks up a grape fairly bursting with vitamins and minerals and life-giving moisture: "In Commander Fisk's quarters."
Cloud 9 flashback continues: Paya coughs some more. Siobhan, worried now, notes her fever, and Apollo asks what they had to say at the "infirmary" -- so, socialized medicine? At the least? -- which is that the antibiotics have all been "rationed out." Paya continues with the hacking cough.
Back in Tigh's quarters, Apollo's leveling with the Colonel: "We've got shortages across the Fleet. People begging for scraps. Somehow, you and Mrs. Tigh have fresh fruit, real liquor --" Tigh snaps around on him: "All right, what the hell is this about?" Apollo thinks Tigh must at least have known Ellen was trading with Fisk -- he makes a very intimidating face -- or maybe he'll just talk to Ellen directly. I don't know why this upsets Tigh, because she only rarely makes an appearance and Apollo will have to find her first, but the phrasing here, and the amazing voice...it's gorgeous. He's just so frail, like Night Of The Hunter intensity in this. This is the heart of the episode, such as it is: all gristle and bone and nobody standing higher than anybody else. Tigh: "She didn't give it to Fisk, I did. I traded it for a few necessities, a couple of things to help her get by, big frackin' deal. There's nothing illegal about that." Apollo allows as how this is true, for the moment. Tigh: "Don't you play 'holier than thou' with me. I haven't done anything that most people on this ship haven't done." Wow is that not an excuse in any way. I would have walked out right then, like, "Okay, you fucking alcoholic. Have fun with your total lack of accountability." But Tigh follows that up with a sideswipe that pretty much redeems it: "Including you."
We flash back to Lee -- rather than him taking part in the black market, or smuggling her antibiotics for Paya -- paying Siobhan for her services, which makes no sense, because prostitution is legal in the Fleet, but yeah, the point is that Lee's dirty.
"Doesn't make us right, Colonel; just a whole lot of people wrong." Exactly, except Tigh is never going to understand that. Ever. The more people are "wrong" in the Fleet, the lower the bar drops for him. What a great character. This scene rocks. If there's a point, it's this: are you, or are you not, responsible for following the rules -- if nobody else is doing so? What about if nobody's looking? Where's your line?
In the Galactica gymnasium, Apollo is hitting a punching bag. He goes kind of crazy, because he's been confronted with the fact that -- along with unsurprising Fisk and Tigh -- he himself is part of the shadow economy. Somehow. Dualla approaches, noting that he missed self-defense today, and he responds that he's been "pretty jammed up." He finally admits this, after six months of me saying it. Giant word, dude. I'll smuggle you a bran muffin or something. "Anyway," Apollo shrugs, "I'm not sure you need me holding your hand anymore." She wonders aloud, "Is that what you were doing? Holding my hand?" Apollo gets eye-rolly, like, "Don't get all girly on me right now," and explains that he meant it as a compliment. Dualla: "Permission to speak frankly, sir?" When Anastasia Dualla says this, run away. Don't even grab your towel. "You don't need my permission, and you don't need the 'sir.'" Which -- is when Dualla gets the upper hand, to my mind, because he's just said all he needs to say: "I'm perfectly aware of the six levels on which I've been and continue to be sending you mixed messages about our mutual attraction, Petty Officer, and I will continue to do so." Dualla's like, "Fuck that, and fuck you": "Maybe that's the problem. I don't really know what to think anymore. So, I'll just ask: Is this going somewhere?"
And oh, the internets, they go crazy. I've called Dualla "fickle" and I don't mean it in the derogatory sense, in the "slutty" sense, but from what I can see, Dualla and Billy are not a shipper ship; they're casually dating. Sometimes we fill in the blanks for ourselves, and the shock when the show takes a turn, it's hard to reconcile to the facts. And I may well be proven wrong, and I'm sure Billy will go crazy like the internets because he's filling the blanks in too, but I'm not going to drop the hammer on Dee just yet. And that's why this scene is good, because Dee not only plays it correctly, but meta -- McClure plays it incredibly wisely. "Please don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. You know our time together, our workouts. Something's changed between us." Translation: "Be a grownup for just one second while I figure my life out, okay?" And Apollo's disingenuous confusion could not be more defensive or off-putting if he'd done this in a Nixon mask: "I'm just not sure what you want me to say." Every word, including prepositions, is a lie. He shrugs with his face, his shoulders, his biceps, a shrug that sweeps everything under the rug: past nameless baby mama girlfriend, present hooker Siobhan, future possible Dee (and thanks to bluedevilblue for pointing that whole triad out) -- it's all just too messy. The apple doesn't fall far from the...apple. The fact is, Dualla was the exact same way when she was feeling out Billy: puts it out there like a straight-backed adult, laughs about the resulting confusion, and waits patiently for the guy to figure it out. I don't see this as testing Lee to see whether she should dump Billy: I see this as an honest question. "I care a lot about you either way. Should I spend any time or thought on this? Or are you just fracked?" Answer: fracked, of course. "Then don't say anything," she snits. Apollo watches Dualla go; he's making a choice.
Apollo's called to Cloud 9, where Siobhan has been supremely jacked up. She and Paya huddle and freak out on the bed. "They said they knew about you and me. They wanted to know what we'd been talking about. I don't understand why they'd care." Me neither, frankly. The only thing here is that Siobhan's being used to send a message to Apollo, to back off the black market, but that's a lot of words to say that. Maybe Siobhan's not smart enough to figure it out, except (a) she is in league with these people and knows who they are, and (b) she's smart enough to explain the entire episode at the end of it. Is she a femme fatale in this? She's just so scribbled in and unfinished that you could go ten ways on it. Apollo starts packing Siobhan's shit up and talking all superhero about taking her and the kid back to Galactica, and she protests for no reason other than to further the plot: "What are you going to tell them about us?" Um, that our completely legal financial relationship does not preclude my getting you and your child out of physical danger? Chill, girl, it's not like he sent you shopping down Rodeo Drive for the polo match. (Yet.) "I'm not fooling myself. I know what this is." But apparently we, the viewers, do not, because I'm still stuck: does her line of work somehow exempt her from the right to not have her face bashed in? What was the point of turning Starbuck and Boomer into these strong, competent women, all haters be damned (not to mention Roslin and Six and even fucking Kat), if this kind of shit was waiting at the end of the tunnel? You could have had Dirk Benedict if you'd made the women like this from the beginning. It's not like he's doing anything besides chewing on bitterness and hating women.
Creeps enter and attack Apollo. Yet another glass coffee table goes the way of the dodo as Siobhan screams unhelpfully. I've not met a sister in my life that couldn't fight like a motherfucker. I'm just saying. The Bond villain piano-wire device appears and Apollo is strangled while helplessly watching Siobhan get beat. This is the choice of a man who gets more pleasure out of wrestling women on the floor, or getting smacked around by tomboys? Phelan enters and taps Lee on the forehead. "You listening? I hear any more talk about Fisk, I'm going send your whore back to you piece...by piece. And then I'm going start with the little girl." Why are we all pretending she has no legal recourse here? Because hookers in danger put pulp writers' kids through school from 1940-1970, and let's not let simple logic get in the way of that completely irrelevant fact. Lee's reaching for a piece of glass from the smashed table. "I know who you are. I know whose son you are. And I don't care. You tell Adama to let it go." Phelan kicks Apollo in the head and Apollo falls unconscious, and his head bounces on the floor in slow motion, which is funny instead of worrying, because this episode is taking place on the holodeck of any one of a number of vastly shittier shows, and we cut to blessed commercial comfort.
Flashback to the Cloud 9 back in the days before pimps were invented, i.e., hours ago, and Siobhan caresses Apollo's sweet head, asking about Nameless Voiceless Caprica Baby Mama: "Is that when you knew that you loved her?" Apollo says he at least thought so, but confusingly, we cut to her touching her belly and smiling at us, which in the reconstructed memory seemed to happen right before he punked her. Which, given the fact that it's Apollo, actually does make sense: That was when I fell in love with her. So I knew she had to go. "But you hurt her," explains Siobhan, as we see a tear running down Baby Mama's cheek, and she runs away. Apollo just stands there, frozen. I have no idea what we're supposed to be getting out of any of this. I understand the facts but the point is lost. Apollo wakes up from this confusing dream-within-a-dream and finds the assassin on the floor with a hole in his head, and Siobhan and daughter gone. There's a huge gross piano-wire line on Apollo's neck. (Shut up, Wesley.) He calls for a medic and security team.
Colonial One. Hell yes. Baltar has been summoned to Roslin's office, where she's adjusting the Whiteboard to 49,597. (Whence the assassin guy? I thought we were up to the minute!) She welcomes him and offers him tea in such a frightening way that I expect to see a human finger bobbing around inside it. "Hot cup of airlock, bitch?" She passes Baltar the tea and he's not so interested in it, and she levels: "You know, I'm never quite sure where we stand with each other, Doctor. Why do you think that is?" Because the cast seems to be the only segment of the production that has seen the show before, Callis does a good job of continuing his emotional arc from the last episode: he's super-steamed about the letter and the hexagon blood, and even though they happened in the real world in the opposite order than they happened to him, that's Baltar. Not "I guess I shouldn't have handed over government secrets to a hot piece of ass" but "I had nothing to do with this...I'm phoning my attorney." It's what makes him a great character.
Baltar: "I can't imagine why. I've never had anything but the utmost respect for you, and your office." It's the last clause that kills me, because he mentioned that specific thing to Fisk earlier. Roslin asks him about the "meeting" with Fisk, and Baltar starts shooting these intense jealousy rays at her, for maybe the first time. "As I have already explained to Captain Adama, Commander Fisk had several lingering concerns about your new trade policy. What can I say?" Roslin wonders if that's the whole of it, and Six appears, to note that Roslin's afraid of Baltar now. That's one thing I like about this episode: the way Six is used as this oracular, obscured intuition proxy to get things across to Baltar that he knows but can't process on his own. "You saved my life," says Roslin in a measured, precise tone. "And I'm grateful. But I sense that there is some unease in you about assuming the presidency..." Six grins hugely and stares at Roslin, Gaius gets sad, they both know what's coming. "...and I'd like to offer you an out." Baltar's jaw drops. She offers him the chance to resign and go back to doing "scientific work" (of whatever kind he's been doing) on Galactica: "No one will question your motives. You can consider it a second chance, like the one you gave me." She's laserlike now. She has no idea that this is exactly the wrong thing to say to him; I wonder if she even knows Billy gave Baltar the letter? I can see her finding that out down the road and getting hella scared about what she's just done. Baltar stands; Roslin does not -- the one time standing/sitting reverses its power polarity is when there's a huge-ass desk between you -- and stares him down: "Doctor. This is a one-time offer." They stare at each other with tiny secret smiles. Baltar: "You know, Madame President, I've never been particularly interested in politics. I never wanted any lofty position of power. I never wanted to be the Vice-President. That is, until this very moment. Because right now, I can't think of anything I want more." I almost want to cheer for him, because as messy and emotional that statement is, it would be the appropriate one, if he were in the right and she was just being weird. It makes Roslin sad, and he turns to go without a word.
On Cloud 9, this interesting-looking security guy is questioning Apollo about the mysteriously appearing dead guy with the piano-wire device, with which the security officer is now playing: "Whatever happened, looks like you found your guy." Apollo asks after Siobhan and the kid, and the guy's like, "Cloud 9's an open port. Chances are, they're already off ship. I'll get a team down here." I like this guy.
The security guy leaves as Zarek appears, beginning the one purely noir scene of the entire episode. Completely warm, he's like, "Lee! I just heard, are you all right?" Instead of asking, "Heard from whom?," Apollo just gets bitchy. Zarek explains that he's on Cloud 9 for a "Quorum meeting; nothing as exciting as all this, I assure you." Zarek reiterates that the bordellos of Cloud 9 are legal, "but still...the son of the almighty Adama?" So I guess that's the answer: they're legal but still frowned upon, or something. Maybe the Fleet just finds the pimp-related cognitive dissonance too much to bear. Lee interrupts, hard as stone: "Talk to me about the black market." Zarek explains that it is "widespread, inevitable, and -- according to President Roslin -- illegal." Is the trade policy really so vague that nobody can understand the difference between barter and an artificial decrease in supply? Lee smirks, "So it's no surprise that you and Fisk were in it up to your necks." Zarek begs off and asserts that, given that he represents the Astral Queen, he has to be careful about the friends he keeps. I guess that doesn't hold true for pissing/make-out buddies. Speaking of the Astral Queen, though, Apollo's got Fisk's log, which says that he made three runs to Zarek's ship in the last ten days, proving he's in on it. Apollo demands ship names and contacts and whatnot, and Zarek's eyebrows have gone completely crazy on his face: "I can't help you. Why do you think Fisk approached me?" Lee figures it's about Fisk wanting a piece of the scam, or wanting to squeeze Zarek for protection. Zarek smiles, gets a drink, and has a seat so that he can indulge Lee for as long as it takes. As usual, I want to like him, and then they get you in the fourth act: "You and your father are so blinded by the past. Fisk's black market was up and running when he approached me. He knew Adama would pick up on his unauthorized shuttles, so he tried to force me into taking over the deliveries, creating a firewall between Pegasus and the illegal shipments." So...it was Fisk that created the black market. The "widespread, inevitable" black market. How incredibly stupid. How stupidly "the influence of Cain, it lingers." Whatever. This scene is wonderfully acted and it's fun to watch, even as it's asking you to believe that a universal human quality did not exist in the Fleet until one drunken sailor got his ass organized. Zarek proves that he turned Fisk down by the fact that all supply ships stopped coming to the Astral Queen, period, since the last time he saw Fisk there. Don't those guys usually riot and rape when they don't get supplies on time?
Apollo: "If Fisk was trying to starve you out, why didn't you bring it to the Quorum?" Zarek does not actually answer this plot-defining and very apposite question: "Roslin's acting like the black market's some sort of aberration, but I thought you were smarter than that. Did you really expect some utopian fantasy to rise from the ashes?" Didn't...Zarek? Wasn't that the point of his character? Way back when? "I heard the security officer. They gave you Fisk's killer for a reason: they're offering you a way out." The penny drops, kinda, and Lee gets in Zarek's face: "You know something, don't you?" Zarek, cucumbrous: "Just rumors. There's a freighter, Prometheus. Some people say it's gone off the grid." I have a minor, not a major, problem with that concept, but it has to do with remoras and how the only thing you'd need for this to work is access to the emergency jump coordinates, and the wireless can't cut you off from those, so it's possible. Shuttles to and from other open ports are more questionable, but I guess if even famous Captain Adama can manage one a bit later, it's not that hard. Zarek goes on: "If you want something bad enough, that's where you go. The deals are brokered by an ex-military mercenary named Phelan." This is like Final Fantasy where the bubbles full of useful info come out of their mouths and then they go back inside their creepy houses. This is like Batman Begins where every character tells you how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man and then say, "The princess is in another castle!" and then tell you exactly where that castle is, including street address. All very pulpy, like those suspenseful books where the chicks would just show up, hand you a fresh gun, fuck you, and disappear. Zarek and Apollo smile at each other like Lee is just so good, just such a hardcore interrogator with an eye for darkness who'll catch you in a lie without betraying a thing, just such a hero, when the reality is that Zarek just said, "I would love it if you would go kill Phelan for me so that I can be the new Mob Boss, please" and Lee said back, "In your face! I totally am going to!" I guess Sharon never told Apollo the actual story on Kobol about how Zarek was going to shoot him in the head for no real reason. Lee takes off for the level of the game, Prometheus, via highly-uncomfortable Raptor, but not before Zarek's all, "Lee -- I hope she's worth it." Whatever, dude. If I believed that was what this was about, I would quit. Come on. Zarek provideth the necessary viewpoint, and Zarek taketh it away. Just like every time.
Lee wants to get back to the plot, though: "And what about those children outside?" Siobhan stares at him. "How are they 'helping the Fleet'?" Phelan equates a bunch of things at once including pedophilia, cigars, liquor, and Siobhan. Is there a shortage of prostitutes? What? Phelan gets to the actual point, cutting through a lot of higgledy-piggledy: "It's hard to find the moral high ground when we're all standing in the mud." Lee's grossed out, even though that's the loudly-trumpeted and only fairly interesting point of this entire exercise. They front on each other for awhile about how they're just the same, or totally different, depending on what kind of deluded they are, and the thugs eventually pull guns on Lee. "I came alone. But Galactica tracked me on dradis." He's like a little boy living out a bad cop movie. He's got this ongoing smirk of bad-assery. "All they'll need to vent this ship into space is an excuse. So, let's make a deal. I want Siobhan, the girl. I walk out of here, and you shut down this operation. And all of you will live." Phelan apologizes that Paya's already been paid for, and Siobhan freaks out about that, so they rough her up. Pushed beyond the limit by this nonsensical abuse, Lee grabs one of the thugs' guns and points it into his own chest. "Come on, do it. Do it," he purrs. Dude, if you're going to get all drama every time you're confronted with moral relativism, just airlock yourself right now. I get that he's got this death wish and this fear of intimacy and this desire to reconnect with Adama/masculinity through becoming a father and all that jazz, but I didn't need this circus to know that shit. This is like Ally, or like Battlestar Adventures -- the oversimplified cartoon version of stuff you already know. Apollo and Phelan front some more, and Lee takes the thug's gun away and points it at Phelan, so that we're caught back up to the thrilling yet unnecessary res we started out in.
Commercials. Far be it from me to even acknowledge internet drama, especially involving the whizbang illiteracy and creepy misanthropy of your average IMDb discussion, but I so, so love how the guy over there decided that I agreed that this version of the show was fake and evil and sex-obsessed just because I hated this episode, like I had finally seen the light or whatever, when in fact, the reasons he hates this show are the exact reasons that science fiction is a fucking joke to everybody that's not in on the joke, and that my hate of this episode is hate for everything he stands for -- not to mention that, for the same reason, he'd fucking love this episode, for exactly the reasons I hate him -- and it -- in the first place. Which is tidy and ironic but doesn't change the fact that this show, which I love precisely because it takes that which sucks about sci-fi television and turns it into awesome, has power-injected those things into this episode with a fucking vengeance. Nobody wins. What kills me is, what if this was the first episode you saw?
"Yeah, you're probably right about everything," says Lee. "You, me, Fisk. Nobody can stop it, and maybe nobody should. But it needs limits. There's lines you can't cross. And you've crossed 'em." Again with the kids. This is not the heart of it. Tigh was the heart of it. Apollo's not saying anything Tigh didn't say better. "You're not gonna shoot," Phelan says. "You're not like me." Siobhan stares, Apollo stares, everybody stares and thinks for a while. We flash again to the girl on Caprica, and I guess the point is that Apollo did this girl wrong enough that it's his most guilty thing. Like, everybody has their one thing and they don't think or talk about it, but it's there, and when Phelan says, "We are both the same amount of in the mud," Lee thinks of this. Which is characteristic of Lee -- that he would equate child prostitution with anything normal -- because this whole time he's been pretty much textbook clinically depressed, which is where one takes the personal apocalypse and puts it above everybody else's because they don't look as bad on the outside as he feels on the inside, so it stops being about ego ("My pain is bigger than your pain") and starts being about subjective fact ("There is no way your pain could be this big or else you couldn't stand up"). Apollo shoots, Phelan dies. Siobhan goes "Huh," and wanders off, freaked out. Instead of shooting Apollo's ass, the thugs stare at him noncommitally and wait patiently for him to explain a bunch of shit to them. They actually put away their guns. "Fleet relies on the black market. Much as we'd like, we can't wish that away. So, you're still in business. For now. But if there are any more killings, if you hold back essential medicines, if you ever touch a child..." He just stands there, weirded out. I don't know, though. Does the Fleet rely on the black market because it's inevitable and widespread, like Orwell and Zarek said, or because the trains aren't running on time, like Gorbachev and Phelan said? One's about the human condition, the other is about why socialism fails, and they're not necessarily exclusive -- but in this story, they kind of are, which is confusing, because the story just keeps shooting stuff at you. Maybe saying "pressure valve" was the tie between the two? "We hoard because we love."
Apollo sees a disturbed Siobhan and walks over to her where she's sniffling at the bar, like thisclose to pulling her ragged dress around her shoulders to hide her exposed nakedness so that Apollo can give her the trenchcoat of chivalry. She shrugs him off not because she's not interested in being a tired, played-out fake male empowerment fantasy in a sub-par Marlowe ripoff, but because she's spent the last scene worrying -- not about her child who is now in whoredom, or the fact that she and Lee were both about to die the whole time -- but in fact about whether or not she can truly fulfill Lee Adama's huge, gaping, all-important emotional needs: "Stop! I can't be what you want me to be...You want me to be her. That's what this is about. That's what this has always been about...I know my job. I'm a replacement. For a lot of things. Things that men can't get anywhere else. Things they've lost. She wanted to give you a child. But you were afraid, so you pushed her away and then you ran. And you didn't stop running until it was too late. Well, I'm not her! And Paya is not, and will never be, your child." Fucking gag me. And the thing is that everybody -- Siobhan, Bamber, the editors, music -- works triple-time to pull this load of crap off. It's one of Bamber's finest performances, reacting to this, trying to interrupt, trying to stop her, trying to tell her it's not true, having to admit that it is, balking at the whole thing. The editing cuts ruthlessly between this speech and somewhat literal flashbacks to the Caprica truth of this story she's telling. Everybody does their best to make up for the crappiness of this entire scene, and that's a bummer, because you should only have to bend over backwards and kiss the Emmy when you're actually going to be earning it. If you're going to infodump exposit like this, at least have the grace to earn it from the inside like, say, Dualla, rather than have it all come spilling out of this random woman we've never seen before and will never see again. Unless they find her in a refrigerator week or something.
Back on Colonial One, Apollo debriefs his dad and the President: "Commander Fisk's murder has been resolved, and Pegasus's crew appears to have accepted Galactica's conclusions. That's all, Madame President." She's like, "What about the Prometheus?," which she's given to understand is the "hub of the Fleet's black market." Apollo offers to keep an eye on them, and Roslin's not okay with that answer: "Whether or not we allow a criminal enterprise to thrive in this Fleet is not a matter of choice, Captain." He almost drops under her glare, but he's still feeling rebellious due to the fact that she broke his heart two weeks ago. She looks to Dad, but Adama just says he's given Lee "full authority on this issue." Apollo explains that he supports the new trade policy wholeheartedly, but -- in case we needed it explained a fifteenth time -- "We are never going to have a perfect system. There will always be some kind of black market." At least this way, he'll know the names and the faces and the details and he and Jennifer Jason Leigh can find out if there really are no more tears in heaven. She looks at them, the wall of Adamas blocking her view of the rosy utopian future, and looks away: "Thank you, gentlemen, I'm busy." Ouch! It's even more painful than you think.
Cut to Zarek walking through the Prometheus, escorted by one of Phelan's former thugs, getting smiling and chatty with the bad guys. Mission accomplished. Poor dumb Apollo. Who could have thought he'd end up being the only actual assassin? That's so sad!
In the Galactica gym, Billy's holding Dualla's feet down for her sit-ups and they are being cute and mumbly about losing count and so forth. In case Billy's a Cylon, Dualla notes that he is barely sweating, even though he apparently should be, given the intense stamina required to hold a girl's feet down who's tipping the scales at 110 pounds easy. They are mighty adorable together, sneaking in for a kiss every now and then and romantically grousing at each other. Lee watches them and turns to leave, catching Dualla's eye. She watches him leave for a second, and then turns back to Billy, smiling resolutely. "Okay then," she thinks, "but you and I both know this is far from the end of it." Which is fine, because you knew from the time she wigged about Zarek that she was the female version of Lee. Who is the female version of Kara, who is in turn the female version of Tigh, who is the female version of Adama, who is the female version of Chuck Norris, who is the female version of Laura Roslin, who is the female version of Jimmy Carter, and if you think I'm being sexist or something with this joke, go watch this episode again before you email me.
In Adama's quarters, no music at all plays as father and son feel the grodiness and disappointment of getting slow-burn yelled at by the President. Out of nowhere, Adama tells us directly about how "ever since [Lee] ejected from the Blackbird, [he's] been different. Harder to reach." This point could also be made by showing Lee being different, or perhaps harder to reach, but it's not like these two have very many scenes together, and the prenominate moment last week with Starbuck, where he was both, does help. "Well, like you said, Dad. We've all been through a lot" is Lee's failure of a reply. Whereas normally Adama would be on that like a Tigh on a highball, Adama's just like, "Fair enough." They both drink instead of communicating. "But you should have told me about the woman." Lee smiles, looks over at Adama, cracks a brow, then flops back, staring into space, wondering what the hell that line even meant. The end.
"Glorious failure" is a phrase that springs to mind perhaps too readily in our superlative-enhanced times, but this is not one. Not "failure," because it succeeds on its own terms, and occasionally rises above the low bar it sets for itself; neither "glorious," a term reserved for attempts at actual ambition. What it is, is a stepping-stone to week, for which I cannot wait: Anders is an issue again, Kat's marginally less or possibly more of an asshole, Starbuck's a bitter old drunk, and Helo's all up in her business. I'll see you there. Boom boom boom.