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Hell, yes. Nine months ago, the world ends. Gaius Baltar's hot girlfriend Natasi (#6) gets fried in a nuclear blast on Caprica and wakes up in a Cylon birthing tank, assuming that the man she loves is dead -- and is welcomed from her download by Aaron Doral (#5), D'Anna Biers (#3), and...Gaius Baltar. Yep. Lest she think he's a Cylon, though, he reveals that he's not really there, and then acts really cool and sexy and idealized. He tempts her toward sympathy toward humanity, playing on her guilt for using him to engineer their extinction. She is something of a celebrity, for her part in the Apocalypse, and thus unique, which worries D'Anna. A few months later, Boomer (#8) gets Jack Rubied by Cally, and downloads back on Caprica. She's troubled by her experiences aboard Galactica, and over-identifying with her human victims and history, and so D'Anna sends Six in to get her back on track. Struggling with her own emotions, and somewhat swayed by Sharon's -- not to mention by her inner Gaius -- Six realizes that they've been played: they'll more than likely be judged unsalvageable and "boxed," their memories held back in cold storage from download. Meanwhile, Anders and his Resistance buddies plan guerilla attacks, one of which strands him in a carpark with D'Anna, Six and Sharon. Realizing D'Anna's reaction to the threat they represent itself proves the holes in the Plan, they let Anders escape, kill D'Anna, and put their own DEMAND PEACE movement into effect. They only have thirty-six hours before the D'Anna downloads and hits the alarm. This D'Anna is fantastic, like a deranged Life Coach on Starting Over with access to inordinately large weaponry; this Six is brittle, self-questioning and vulnerable, playing the irritated haunting victim every bit as hilariously and sadly as Gaius back home; this Boomer is strong, smart, complex, pissed and loyal, but bad at screaming. It's beautiful, all of it. On Galactica, Boomer finally gives birth to a daughter, Hera, whom Roslin kidnaps -- involving Doc Cottle in a creepy dead-baby substitution maneuver -- and sends off like a half-robot Moses with a random Tory-approved childless woman. I see that working out well for all concerned. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Nine months ago, on Caprica, the poundy drums were intense indeed. At Gaius Baltar's house, he was megastressed because he'd just learned that, thanks to him, the entirety of humanity was going to be destroyed in a minute. He was freaking out on his girlfriend -- who'd used their relationship to set the whole thing up -- about how she had to have an escape plan, right, because nuclear bombs are all fun and games until you are vaporized into a shadow on the wall and your crops are irradiated for a thousand years. Kind of embarrassed for him, Six explained in simple words that she was a total robot and would just download into a fresh body once she was exploded. Baltar was also going blind at this point due to the bombing, and having a science-fiction porn moment in his own head: "You mean there's more out there like you?" She explained that she was the sixth of the twelve Cylon models, he said he didn't want to die, and then she pushed him to the ground as a nuclear shockwave brought the house down around them.
Today, Six's eyes go all twitchy in a Cylon birthing tank, and her downloaded memories flash across the screen. But it's not just any memories, not her life flashing before her eyes: we see her before and after she killed that baby while wearing a totally fierce violet jacket; kissing Gaius in the Caprica gardens; making love to him in the house. Guilt, love, sex, Gaius. She is the evolution of the Cylon machine: first comes sentience, then comes self-doubt, self-interrogation, guilt. The drums stop for a second as Six breathes: "Do you love me?" And then they start again, and it's awesome, and Six remembers more sex and more Gaius. If the Six model's need for love can be fulfilled -- and by a human, of course -- then there's got to be more to God's plan. I'm not sure, but I think some of the memories are actually of Gaius and Chip Six on Galactica, but I'm sure that, if that's true, it's just a funny edit and not yet important, because that's a pretty tiny thing for foreshadowing.
Again there is the blast, and again Six gasps in the birthing tank. Her bangs and face are dry, because she's been lying there for a while, waiting to download. She stutters, very confused, and a Boomer in a beautiful dress and another version of Six watch, worried. "I was in a house," says Tank Six. The voice of D'Anna Biers comforts her: "But you're not in a house any longer." Biers smiles down at her: "You're back with us. You've been reborn." Six isn't really there yet, repeating that she has died. It seems very traumatic and not just a little painful. Biers strokes her hair, speaking sweetly and softly: "But that is all over now. You have been downloaded into a new body." The other Six is very professional and put-together, as usual, but weirded out by the spazzing. The reborn Six thinks for a moment: "Gaius. Gaius was in the house." Biers and Boomer look at each other, concerned. "Is he alive?" Six demands. "Is he?" Nobody answers her, but from nowhere there's a gentle "Shhhh." The camera pans up from her panicked face to Gaius, his shit ten times as together as we've seen in a long while. Oh my God! He's a Cylon! "I'm not really here," he whispers. "No one can see me but you." Oh my God! He's a Chip Gaius! Fake-out! Double fake-out! Six lets out a choking chuckle and reaches for Baltar. "Don't let them know," he says. Biers, more firmly: "Six. Would it trouble you if Dr. Baltar were dead?" Six retreats as Gaius murmurs, "If they know how you feel about me, it'll be a problem." Six thinks fast and dials it back: "It would be unfortunate. If he died. He was so helpful." Biers gleams: "Very helpful. Your mission was a resounding success. It completely disabled the colonial defenses." She's so warm, her beaming smile: "The attack succeeded beyond our most optimistic projections, thanks to you." She's so proud. Six just stares.
Ten weeks ago, on Galactica, the poundy drums were in full force. Sharon Valerii, having been in hack after shooting Adama at a really inconvenient time, was hustled down a corridor. The faces of her former friends and compatriots were angry, but she kept looking at them all. Cally ran forward, twisted with rage, and shot her stupidly in the abdomen. In the birthing tank, now, Sharon's eyes twitch. She remembers, downloading: kissing Chief Tyrol, waking up all wet with no idea how she got there, many naked Sharons, the word "Cylon" scrawled across her locker mirror, a gun in her mouth, Chief coming to her post-suicide attempt, shooting Adama, his hand outstretched, screaming in the brig, Tigh with a gun to her head, and sitting with the betrayed Chief in hack. The drums stop, and Chief says, disgusted: "I'm not a Cylon. You're a machine; I'm not." That's her question, the entirety of her question. The whole Brokeback Mountain of her Season 1 storyline has led Sharon to this download: she is the line between the human and the Cylon, the blurring of her two identities, the love of Chief. Put her together with the Six above, and something magical might happen. The drums continue, and again, Sharon dies, Chief holds her, a drop of blood splashes on the deck.
"I know there's pain," says Biers, "but breathe -- ride through it. You're going to be okay. Trust me." Sharon's hands are shackled. Again, there are three women present for the rebirth: self-sufficient, older model Biers; loving, sexual, triumphant Six; little sister/fighter/mother Sharon. I didn't get Starbuck at Hera's birth later, but I'll make do with this. Biers: "You're in God's hands. We're all here with you. That's it." Sharon coughs and retches, and Biers continues in her soothing tone. "This will pass. Trust me. Everything's gonna be all right." Six smiles lovingly: "Welcome home, sister. We're here. We're going to take care of you." At Natasi's resurrection ceremony twenty-six weeks ago, it was the Boomer that was closer, a Six standing a bit further back; this time, their positions have changed -- I guess it's traumatic enough without having a you all up in your grill. Doral stands by, so proud. I wonder if he's there for the same reason as the shackles: I imagine that since Sharons are always a little buggy -- it was a non-sleeper Sharon that turned on them recently -- you want to be extra-very-careful with a sleeper one. The Sharon attending is wearing the same lovely shirt, with ruffles and such. I wonder if this as momentous, as ceremonial a thing as we'd probably assume? Given the way they all go around constantly pronouncing things as God's Will and stuff, you think they'd like the pomp. The Sharon standing by smiles down, full of love and care: "We love you." The acting is great from her, this terrible desire to help Sharon, to calm her, to make her believe that they're all there for her and that they love her. The pain of being rejected. Sharon in the tank starts to scream ("Noooooooooooo!") and the camera pulls up, up, up until the glowing birth tank is just a blip. Very "sci-fi," but well done. Credits. 49,579 souls in the Fleet, and then an ad for Dr. Who, coming to Sci-Fi, in this timeslot once the season is over in two weeks, two episodes a week for two weeks and one thereafter for the full fourteen episodes. If, um, if that interests you at all.
Now, on "present day Cylon-occupied Caprica," Six is on a bench watching some Centurions planting a tree. I tried to work out all the time stuff so that this would all make sense -- that the action at the end of the episode was mark, and the nine months and ten weeks counted back from that and not necessarily from our main storyline, but that doesn't work either. So who knows. Also, where are they? Wouldn't this be Delphi, like Kara's apartment? Caprica City was encrapulated. Imaginary Gaius sits beside Six, pissing all over every happy thought she can muster, as Cylons walk around, dressed identically, Boomers in jackets and Leobens in rust and Dorals in emerald. Lest it distract you for the rest of the episode, I'll tell you right now that it's no use wondering how they can tell each other apart, because even asking the question makes you a total racist. "I was thinking it symbolized rebirth, a new beginning," Six smiles at Baltar lovingly, laying her head down along an arm. He turns, whip-quick, angry as hell: "It's a memorial. Do you know how many people died in this park during the attack?" Six just plays with his hair, sleepy with the pleasure of being with him, here. "How many people in this park alone?" he presses.
Biers leans in over Six's sideways head, causing Six and Baltar both to jerk upright, hilariously. "It's gonna be lovely, isn't it? A place to relax and collect your thoughts. How are you doing?" Pay close attention to the emergent structures behind everything Biers says, ever: the Starship Troopers stuff in her Patriotic Handjob Video was not a mistake. She's just said: "The future of Cylontology is quite rosy. I hope you're not going crazy yet, given that this place holds tons of meaning and guilt for you. Is it making you nuts, by any chance?" Six admits that she's "a little stiff," and Biers considers her probingly. Six extemporizes that she's having trouble learning to control the new body: "Even after all this time, I still feel awkward." Nine months is a long time, Blondie, is the message: "I was a klutz, too. Always knocking things over. Forever tripping over things." Biers sits with Six, all casual and friendly, flipping her hair like they're just girlfriends. "And you know what? You get over it." Or else. The three of them, Gaius now on Biers's other side, all cross their legs at the knee at the exact same time, in the exact same direction. It's adorable. I miss when Chip Six got to have fun like this. Ever since Gina, she's been way hardcore. Biers goes on: "And you know what, this is a great chance to cleanse. You got a new body, a new life. And anything that you've built up, like anxieties or remorse or guilt, just let it wash away." Or else. By "opportunity," she means "necessity on pain of death." Six responds to the extrinsic comfort: "I can't tell you how thankful I am. You've been a really big help to me." But Biers pshaws: "No, it's me who's thankful. We all are. You are a war hero!" So act like it! Oh, did that bother you? Six's face falls, slightly. "We could not have won without you," Biers insists. A Doral approaches, as if on cue, to tell Six what an honor it is to have her back with them on Caprica: "What you did...well, it's inspiring." She thanks him, he smiles and turns away, and she is pensive and anxious. "Go me," she thinks.
In the Galactica sick bay, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that there is Cottle, there is Helo, and that Boomer's finally having her baby. The bad news is that the baby's finally arriving, way ahead of schedule, for an emergency C-section, with a detached placenta; also, Boomer is tachycardic and hemorrhaging. And Boomer's finally having her baby. Helo comforts her, caressing her hair and answering questions, as Cottle works efficiently and bitches magnificently: "I find it absolutely amazing. You people went to all the trouble to appear human and didn't upgrade the plumbing." Boomer calls out to Helo as she goes under, and in the steel reflection of something nearby, we see Cottle making the first cut.
Six and Biers -- the latter wearing a great scarf -- walk and talk as Boomers and Sixes and Dorals stare and grin and act all starstruck. This kind of thing weirds Six right out. "Well, you're a hero of the Cylon now," says Biers. "You're our first celebrity!" Six protests that she's just another Six, but Biers thinks she's being too modest: "I'm just another Three. And these are Fives [Doral] and Eights [indicating a Sharon]. But you, everyone calls you Caprica Six [heh] -- like you're the only Six on the planet!" She says this in a doofy, just-folks way, like it's a joke that the two of them share. She adds, "What you did was incredibly difficult. Seduce a man so emotionally and physically that he grants you access to all the most closely guarded secrets of his people." Six goes all "Aw, shucks," but she doesn't see the trap yet. "That mission could be profoundly disturbing," Biers comments. Wouldn't it? Aren't you feeling a little nutty? Wouldn't you like to rest in some cold storage forever? Gaius joins in: "'Disturbing'? Sleeping with me and killing billions of people?" Six sighs, navigating the intrusion, smiling at it. "Because I rather thought you enjoyed sleeping with me," Baltar adds.
Six equivocates with Biers: "It was...difficult at times." Biers shakes her head, so concerned: "So nobody here can possibly understand what you've been through. Which is why we need your help. There's another Cylon who's been having trouble re-integrating after a download. Another hero, actually." She's not hugely happy about any of this, is Biers -- the translation: you've become something strange and new, flawed. An unknown quantity, known by everybody. And there are two of you. She goes on: "An Eight. She still insists on calling herself 'Sharon.'" Which, there's easy wank for this -- namely that they were trying to chill her out -- but "Sharon" is what they called her when she downloaded. Six shakes her head: "And you thought I could help." Oh, hell. "I'm still having..." Gaius shakes his head wonderfully, the "Oh girl, no!" of this. Yeah, he nods, yeah, that's a bad idea. "I'm having problems of my own," Six concludes. Biers calls her "Caprica," and protests, "You don't understand. She really needs your help." Gaius pivots on one heel, looking from Biers to Six, hilarious, like he's at a tennis match. Biers: "If we don't turn her around soon, there's talk of boxing her." I'm going to box her once we figure how out bad it is in there. "Putting her memories in cold storage?" Six asks, disgusted. "You can't be serious." Gaius gets smarmy, nastiness underneath the smile: "Well, that's a charming way to deal with emotional problems. One might almost call it inhuman. Oh, that's right, you are." With the sweetest smile. Six bares her teeth at him behind Biers: "Fucking quit, dude." Biers admits -- and we're viewing them now through binoculars on the rooftop -- that it's a last resort, but that Sharon's getting way too weird, regressing. Biers asks again, pointing to an apartment -- coincidence? -- on the fifth floor: "It's the one she had when she thought she was human." Biers leaves, Six reluctantly turns to visit Sharon through the binoculars, which pan up to the few Centurions posted around.
On the rooftop, there's human resistance soldier Barclay: red hair, icy skin, very severe, lovely and particularly harsh-looking. "Security's minimal." Anders is revealed, standing to her, and they discuss the Centurion patrol. "So we go under him," Anders decides. "The storm drain leads directly to the garage underneath the café. There'll be dozens of skin jobs inside." "Skin jobs." I wondered when that would be showing up. You know those wire cork things on top of champagne or pretentious beer? Somebody twisted it into a turtle, you know how you do, and then into a unicorn, at this coffee shop I was hanging out at, and my friend Larry brought it over and put it on the table and when I picked it up to look at it, he screamed from behind me, "It's a pity she won't live!" This is a very funny man, but that's still like my favorite thing he ever did, off a long list. This is maybe not so interesting, except it contains: a café, "skin jobs," and a guy realizing that he's not at all what he thought he was. Thought he was human, turned out he was a robot. And that's the first half of this episode. The second half? The opposite happens.
Galactica sick bay, Helo's worried. The baby isn't breathing. A nurse puts her in a little glass chamber and prepares to take her to a makeshift NICU area: "Her lungs aren't fully developed. She needs oxygen support." The baby -- Hera, mother of the Gods, first among women -- cries aloud, signaling that she's alive, and Cottle gets all cranky: "There's your answer. Now you get the hell out of here. We have to stop the mother bleeding or she's not going to make it."
Six knocks on Sharon's door down in Caprica City -- Apartment 502 -- and the door opens. Horrific music is playing, like, a guy with a ponytail would think this is what the kids are listening to these days. Just dreadful. Not like a college band, but like the band that comes to play at your college. You know what I mean. "You here to kick me out?" Sharon asks Six roughly. Um, not until I heard your music, dude. Get on the floor. She's dressed like a pilot, scrubbly-looking tank and utility pants. She looks rockin' awesome, and she's using that deeper, starker Boomer voice -- the Mischa Barton one that made everybody think she couldn't act. Having spent so much time with the other Boomer now this season, I think the choices and differences and the intuition behind them is a lot easier to see, and swallow. Six totally takes in Sharon's entire outfit, kind of horrified, because it's just not up to the caliber of the I. Magnin earth tones everybody else is obsessed with. Boomer swings back into the apartment, the door hangs loose, Six grabs it and follows her in. Sharon's apartment is gorgeous. The actual front door's in the loft, right, so the apartment itself is down a stairwell along one wall, exposed cement, and the outer wall is glass. I would totally shoot Bill Adama for a sweet pad like that. I think I like it better than Kara's, even. "You're here to help me with my adjustment problems," Sharon guesses. "I could save you some time." She dumptrucks over and starts doing chinups on a bar, with a box under her feet, ignoring Six altogether. As the unbearable music plays, Six wanders around, checking out all the framed fake octagonal pictures.
Sharon finally turns off the hellish sounds and brutes, "This is home. I'm not leaving." Six looks at her, and she busts a flip away. "I lived on Caprica for two years," Six murmurs. "I knew what I was -- pretended to be human, but...I knew." I know what "home" means, Busted Eight. Sharon gets up in her face: "If you knew what you were, and you lived on Caprica, you know what that makes you." She waits enough time for all the horrible ends to that sentence to become apparent. "A really good liar." I feel like this episode was written by committee, because it's such a strong story, just a great plot, wonderfully paced, brilliant, but the quality of the actual dialogue varies so strongly from scene to scene. You have this scene, a masterpiece of minimalism on the page, brought to wondrous life by the director and actors, with room to move, all about the emotion -- which is why it's taking me so long to write about -- but at the end of the episode, these wonderful moments are happening, and the dialogue is as heavy and thick and unpalatable as a brick. So then the actors get to say these impossible lines, and it's nice to watch, but...why not everything at its best all the time? Everything louder than everything else, you know?
Sharon strips to her sports bra and goes in to change. On her coffee table is a bowl of river rocks with some carven elephants hanging out in it. Gaius indicates them from the couch. "Start with the elephants," he says, and cocks a brow at them meaningfully. Sharon comes out in a long-sleeved violet sweater, takes a sip of water, going about her routine very deliberately and loudly the way you only do when you wish your visitor would go right to hell and get out of your face. "These are beautiful," says Six of the elephants. "Ithacan?" Boomer nods: "Hand-carved. My mother gave them to me the day I left for the Fleet Academy." Six holds up a picture of proud parents with a baby: "Is this her?" Sharon's silent as she puts on her jacket like Mr. Rogers, playing for time: "Supposed to be. Of course, none of it's real." Six smiles, like, "...Man, lady." "All fabricated for my mission. It's all a lie."
Six crouches down by the elephants, giving her usual first response to every statement: "Following God's path is never easy..." Gaius tosses some withering shade her way: "Don't get religious with this one. What are you thinking?" I love that even when they were together, she got on his nerves with the God stuff. Or that, if he's just more her, that she knows how one-note she is about it. That's so cute. "Do you think I care about your God?" spits Sharon. Six stands and laughs the laughter of the truly self-righteous: "Look, God loves you." I half-expect a stray beam of sunlight to illuminate her hair and shoulders like Roma Downey. Sharon cuts to the heart of Six's current dilemma, holding up a picture of people, her mates on Galactica, against this faceless love of God. Six can't handle both. Sharon: "This is love. These people love me. I love them." It could be Lee, in the picture -- which would be impossible -- or it could be Bill, or Helo. I did the full Zapruder and I can't tell. The guy's in dress uniform, though. "I didn't pretend to feel something, so I could screw people over." She's getting angrier, because that's a mighty thin razor line to draw in the truth. "I loved them. And then I betrayed them. I shot a man I loved, fracked over another man. Ruined his life. And why?" Cut to Six, interested in the answer, both to show her proximity to the wall and to show her reaction to this indictment. "Because I'm a lying machine. I'm a fracking Cylon!" Sharon screams, and throws the picture against the wall near Six. And yeah, the yell sounds like shit, but she's doing "Galactica Boomer" voice, and already demonstrated in the teaser that she's actually capable of screaming, but here she doesn't, and it's weird but not as deadly as it seemed in the preview last week. The picture smashes against the wall and Six's cheek begins to bleed. Sharon approaches, worried and repentant, and reaches out. Six reacts and pulls back. Sharon whispers, "Sorry. I didn't mean to..." She flips away again, blustering toward the bathroom: "I've got bandages in the head." My emphasis, but it's a good character note.
Gaius does some expositing: "Nicely done. You timed it perfectly." There's an unnecessary flashback to the moment of the smash, with unnecessary Gaius commentary: "Scratch your face with the side of your fingernail the moment the glass hits the wall." Point being, Chip Gaius is the voice of Six wondering if there's any her to her, or if she's so in her head that a real reaction is impossible. Can she reach out to this woman, or is it just manipulation all the way down? With all the hallucination and bullshit she's going through, does she even have the right? Is she just Biers's bitch in this? Can she trust herself to do anything authentically? Can she love? Is she alive? Sharon brings bandages: "Never saw a Cylon show fear before. Especially the Sixes. Usually so hardcore." Gaius smirks, and Six is sheepish but intense. Gaius: "Feign fear and emotional vulnerability. You're very good, you know." Six looks back at him, grossed out -- "What the fuck are you doing to me? Stop poking it!" -- but it's valid. Where's the Six? Why's he so interested in saying there's no such thing? Gaius: "...But I'm better. Let me help you: 'I'm different.'" He drops his eyes again. Six: "I'm different." Boomer looks up. "I'm more like you," Gaius says, and Six repeats it. They begin to speak together: "I had someone I met here. A man. I loved him and I think he could've loved me, eventually." Sharon stares, trying to believe that there's another model as fracked as she is. Six looks back at Gaius, begging it to be true, and he finally looks at her. Ever notice how much pleasure our Gaius gets from Chip Six's protestations of love? Why do you think that is? She drops her gaze, just now realizing how bad this might get.
In the resistance base, there's a cigarette butt in a clothespin. Barclay explains that they're doing a test to see how long the burning cigarette will add to the explosives' fuse action: "Two or three minutes to get the frack out of there. Any longer and we risk them finding the charges before they go off." Anders wonders if Barclay can be any more exact, and they chat while they wait for the butt to say for sure. The third person in their party, a very itchy fellow, pulls a Tigh: "This is a risky operation just to nail a couple dozen skin jobs. I mean, we can't kill them. They'll just download into a new body and...I mean, what's the point?" Anders obligingly tells him the point: "That skin job with Starbuck -- 'Sharon' they called her -- she said that when they download, they remember everything. Right up until the end. These skin jobs are going to remember being blown into tiny little pieces." If anybody qualifies for combatant status, it's Anders. We've had almost two seasons to think of them as people, some of us, but for Anders, even skin jobs having coffee are really just enemy agents. There's no reality to them. He's not a terrorist -- not even a guerilla -- just a person who's been in a state of war for nine months. It's important to make that distinction, because he's about the only human left in the show who gets to believe that so clearly. "It's gotta hurt," says Itchy, and Anders is all, "Duh. Hopefully it hurts real bad, dude." Hilliard's beautifully into it. "Because sooner or later, the message sinks in. There is no safe place, not even a café. So if you want to quit living through hell and dying over and over again, then get the frack off our planet." The fuse trips, the sensor beeps, the verdict: three minutes, ten seconds. Anders: "Boom." It's all very hardcore.
We move across the beach side of Gaius's old house, cutting fast across Six's memories of their time in it together. "This house was on a bluff over a lake. I always loved the view. Sunlight on the water." She smiles. "It's my favorite spot in the universe." Gaius, now being bitchy on the stair: "Yeah, it's magical. Too bad you nuked it." She looks at him, a little angry, a little defensive about the fact that she helped to destroy something she loved, but isn't allowed to mourn it. "After I downloaded, I went back to the ruins of his house," she admits. And Sharon wonders why, because they're still sniffing each other. Six: "Like you, I was looking for some sort of connection to him." She pulls a picture of Chief off the mantle, touches his face. "Found a few of his things. Even held onto them for awhile. But..." -- she hands the photo to Sharon -- "I realized they were keeping me from truly embracing my new life." She tells Sharon she burned the stuff, and Sharon looks away, impressed and appalled. Afraid of such a step. "But I felt liberated," Six assures her. Gaius now pours himself a fucking martini, awesomely. "Yeah, it's a beautiful story, isn't it? Shame it's all a pack of lies." Six looks at him, so guilty and sad and loving; she reaches out, and he's gone. "So who was he?" Sharon asks. "This man you loved." Six smiles, shakes it off, and gives in to pride. "Maybe you've heard of him. Gaius Baltar?" Sharon's aghast, impressed, and Six smiles, so proud of her boy. "He gave you access to the Colonial defense grid. He was the one who betrayed us?" I love how even Sharon is caught in the web of Baltar millionaire-playboy mystique. She can barely believe it. "'Us,'" snorts Gaius. "Oh, I love it." He raises a drink to Sharon. "This one thinks she's more human than Cylon." He looks right at Six. "Just like someone else I know." Sharon asks whether Baltar still works for the Cylons, and Six takes longer to click in this time: "What?" Sharon explains: "On Galactica?" It's like a punch to the gut, this. Tears spring up in Six's eyes: "He's alive?" Sharon's like, "Um, he's the vice president?" Six shakes, close up on her eyes. Who's feigning now? You can almost hear her heart, the story, the episode go: click. Biers is in for a world of shit. Six should be eating an apple.
Roslin taps her fingers on the desk in Adama's quarters, rolling back and forth like a piano player. "If her baby does survive, the question is: what do we do with it?" Gaius, looking surprisingly nuts after all that hot smooth action, bugs out: "'Do'? What are you suggesting? That we throw it out of an airlock?" Roslin says, hilariously, darkly, all in on long sentence as she does, without even sparing a glance for his squirrelly ass: "I don't make suggestions, Mr. Baltar, if I want to toss a baby out an airlock, I'd say so." Gaius -- not tipping his hand at all, is he? -- bugs out some more: "Well, it's really gratifying to know that infanticide's not on the table." Tigh: "Do I have to point out" -- no, but you're going to, like always -- "that this is not a baby? It's a machine." Gaius snaps, "No, it's half machine, half human. I suggest we all keep that half in mind." Proud papa. Thought on this, while we watch Gaius ramp up and up toward the hysteria he calls home: if Chip Six is mostly him, then all this "our baby" crap is really just him, right? His gift to humanity, for what was lost? His redemption? His last hope, as the straddler? And not to stretch the metaphor to snapping, but remember what happened when Demeter (Gaia) lost her daughter? Who holds the keys to life as we know it, still? Demented and arbitrary: who's in charge here?
"Cylons went through a great deal of trouble to create this thing," gruffs Adama. "Should go without saying that if it's good for them, it's gonna be bad for us." Roslin completely agrees -- and it's worth noting that my "political time bomb/Bartlet's MS" wank was never on the table, per the podcast -- and "takes it as a given" that they can't let Sharon raise her either. "That would be disastrous," for some reason. Not even Mary McDonnell can sell that line, because it's so open-ended, but I think Roslin's ambiguous relationship with Hera, hating and depending on the child even as she's way crossing lines about human babies, might be key to the show for the foreseeable future. Close-up on Tigh as Adama considers yet more factors: "There's [sic] Cylons aboard this fleet. If they find out this thing's been born, they're gonna make a play for it." Gaius watches, and Six slides out from behind him, sudden and sinister. "You can see where this is headed, Gaius. We're going to have to take our child." This line of dialogue, much like a whole storyline where the Fleet reporter D'Anna Biers was going to try and kidnap the kid, is pretty much abandoned at this point. (Which I consider a favor less to the fans and more to me personally, because think about this recap: "Then Biers, but not the one from the other scene, tells Sharon, but not the one from the other scene and not the one that died and not the pregnant one and not the one that was at the rebirth ceremony but this other one ...")
In the NICU, Sharon reaches into the incubator, tears in her eyes, smiling. "Hello, Hera." She gasps as the baby wraps her hand around a finger. "She's got quite a grip on her." She smiles at Helo, and they are at peace. "You don't like it in there, do you Hera?" He giggles at the baby. "You've got to stay in, until your lungs get stronger." Sharon's astounded, not just a new mother but the first one ever: "She's our little girl. We made her." The wonder in that. Parents do get ridiculous like this, every day, but it doesn't make it less awesome or less real. "It almost makes you want to believe in the Cylon God," says Helo, caught up in the moment. Sharon looks at him like, "So we can raise her Catholic?" And he smiles: "Almost." Sharon laughs, tired, in love, and buries her head in Helo's neck: "I love you so completely." He closes his eyes, and it is beautiful.
In the garage beneath the coffee shop complex where Sharon lives on Caprica, Anders and his compatriots burn their way out of the sewer and recon the area, and then proceed to set the bomb.
In a coffee shop named almost anything but the obvious, Doral makes a cup of coffee for Doral. They even smirk at each other! There's a fake Simon sitting in there as we pan across, multiples everywhere, to where Six and Sharon are having coffee and bonding rather quickly. "Why do you think they kept [Gaius's questionable survival] from you?" Gaius speaks up: "...Is the wrong question." Six agrees. "The right question is, why did she get me to work with you, knowing that you'd tell me the truth? She knew I had feelings for Gaius. Knew that I had trouble letting go of him." Is she lying yet? "She must've known it would trigger those feelings, those memories. She's fracking with you. Can't you see that?" "Can't you see that?" is a line we don't like, here at TWoP, because: Duh. It's the "Makes sense, doesn't it?" of personal discovery. Plus: obviously, she does. "But why?" asks Six, so apparently she doesn't. Even though she just figured it out. This is a dumbly written scene. "Oh, it's so perfectly obvious," says Gaius, not helping. "You know, for a self-aware cybernetic life form, sometimes you can be unbearably obtuse." This is an okay line because it lets Six do the Gaius thing of snapping, "Oh, for God's sake!" at somebody who's not there. "Careful," he snaps, and disappears...
...as Biers jumps out again out of nowhere, and it's so tense when she does that, and Chip Gaius isn't helping. "Everything okay?" she fairly giggles, and there is silence and sketchiness and Biers fairly whimpers with love and worry. "Fine," says Six, somewhat brightly. "Just talking with Sharon here." Biers gives Sharon this awesome up-and-down look like a Life Coach and acts all girlfriendy with them. "Yeah? What about?" Like it's about a surprise party for one of the Dorals, just because he's been down or something. She's so fucking scary. "She asked me to move out," stutters Sharon. Biers is like, "All right! Yeah!" and pulls up a chair. "You know what? Which is what we've been asking her for weeks. I was kind of hoping that you'd see the light, after talking to our friend here." And that you'd both burst each others' blisters so I'd have a reason to take you both out, of course. She puts her chin on her fist and looks at them cutely. "She is lying, unfortunately," says Gaius. "She has no wish to see Sharon cured. They're just going to do it. They're going to box her." I know the whole matching-chips thing is pretty on the nose, and there had better be a payoff beyond the simple symmetry, but I do love how -- like Chip Six -- Gaius is acting as her conscience, her intuition, her superego, her self-doubt, all at once like this. I've said before how much I love Chip Six's ability to read people, and tell Gaius the things he doesn't want to hear. It's even cooler here, though, because they're all...you know, robots. Six looks at Sharon, scared for her. Not yet for herself. Not even Chip Gaius can admit that yet.
Underneath, the resistance fighters are still setting up the explosives. Barclay tells Anders that there are at least forty people in the café, and reminds him -- as she hands him the lit cigarette -- that he will have about three minutes after the timer clip is set. He sets it. Things start moving faster.
Six tells Biers that they've made "a breakthrough," that Sharon has in fact agreed to move out. "Didn't you, Sharon?" Sharon's like, "Um, sure. Please do not kill my mind." Biers is ecstatic: "Ooh, when?" Six and Sharon look back and forth, pushing the line of credibility so hard you can hear the twanging. Sharon: "Whenever?" Biers's face tells you all you need to know. Frack with me, bitches? I call: "What about now? I'll help! The apartment is right upstairs." There's a three-way fake-out with very shifty eyes and, like, between this and Gaius on Galactica, I'm wondering if there's such a thing as body language in the entirety of communication. Or are Sharon and Six just doing the best they can knowing full well Biers is on to them being on to her being on to them? Ouch. Sharon: "Uh, sure. Let me -- let me just get some things." She takes off, and Biers is just smooth as robot silk: "Six! Must've been some chat, huh?" Six is a little grim: "Yes, we had a lot to talk about." They follow Sharon out of the café, and Gaius appears. "She's right behind you!" Six goes "I know," in this adorable way, like, "Shut up, dude. Jeez!" Aww, I missed the cute inconvenience of Gaius and Six more than I knew -- and now, all I want is Chip Gaius all the time. James Callis is clearly having the time of his life, even on top of not having to play the tweaked-out, twitchy houseboy for five seconds. His smarmy, agog Bond impression is a little broad for me, a little too Monty Python or something, smirky, winking at the audience maybe, but it's a wonderful change of pace regardless.
Anders sets the explosives as the three women climb the stairs toward Sharon's apartment. All done, he gets ready to leave, but just then, a Centurion comes out of nowhere and lumbers around, noticing the bomb. In the stairwell, Biers even smiles cutely to herself. If you'd like to see D'Anna Biers acting like this on a daily basis, and I cannot stress this enough, there's a daytime show called Starting Over that you just might appreciate. Anders hides behind a car as the ladies climb the longest set of stairs in the history of...well, it's five floors in under three minutes, though, so I guess it's just the editing that makes this seem crazy. As Anders takes aim at the bullet head, Sharon reaches into her jacket. It's only a split-second edit, but I like to think she was going for a gun, not a key. That's the Sharon I know. Anders opens fire on the Centurion, and then starts to run, but just then, the bomb goes off, sending Centurion parts and most of the entire building flying right at the camera in a ball of fire. Commercial.
In Colonial One, Roslin and Cottle are having a Glaring Bee, Junior Division. Roslin: "This is not a debate. This child will not be raised by the Cylon, and I cannot risk Cylon agents getting their hands on it. I've made my decision. What I need from you, Doctor, is your help." Cottle makes that wonderful face he makes: "Fine. I don't like it, but have it your way." Roslin nods: "Airlock says I will, thanks." Cottle, playing for time, says, "We'll have to find somebody suitable. I'll have to work up a list of names." Hot chick? Check. Electronically efficient? Check. Fingerprints all over the disposition of the Cybrid? Check. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Tory the Total Cylon, who just stuck her USB finger into a printer when we weren't looking and produced an octagonal list of adoptive parents: "Each of them is capable. Each of them is anonymous. And each can be trusted." Um, yeah! By the Cylons! "Thought of everything, haven't you?" grumps Cottle, taking the list. There's extreme and blurry foregrounding of Tory as Roslin says, "I hope so." Everything except your TOTAL CYLON AIDE, babe. Cottle leaves and Tory sits, her hair loose and looking very wavy and lustrous. It's possible that she's prettier than Billy.
In the rubble of the garage, Six lies unconscious. Biers calls to her, coughing, and Sharon asks just exactly what happened before the commercial. Biers lifts a huge piece of rubble off her worthless metal ass and explains the obvious: "An explosion? Building came down on us? Looks like the stairwell saved us." "Where's Six?" asks Sharon, and Biers shakes her head: "Her body's dead." Six's delivery of the line is wonderful, so pained and matter-of-fact at the same time: "No, not yet." Almost exhausted. It's great. Biers and Sharon remove the debris covering Six, and her leg is like hamburger. "Would've been better if the explosion had killed her," says Biers. "There's nothing we can do about the pain until we get her out of here." They make a tourniquet out of Biers's scarf, and Biers applies pressure, even as she's being "comforting": "Six. I can get a cross beam and put you out of your misery." Six is not having that, of course, and Biers shrugs. They pop her leg back into place. Ugh. "Where the heck are we, anyway?" asks Biers, even though she just told Sharon. Sharon answers the question, since Biers just told her the answer: "Must be in the garage. North entrance might be that way," she says, pointing vaguely. "I'm going to start digging." I love that this episode -- which you had to know was going to be my all-time favorite based on the previews alone -- is basically about three hot chicks with superpowers having coffee and doing Mean Girls shit to each other. If only Roslin could have somehow shown up and they could all have a nice long chat about States' rights and abortion and Adlerian sociology and Passions and whether Cylons get cramps, and braid each other's hair while Chief feeds them grapes and Helo cradles a baby in the corner, shirtless and maybe quietly weeping. Add guns and girls kissing each other, and that's Appointment Television for me, which is why I love Farscape so much, because I totally just described that whole series for you. As well as most Scandinavian cinema.
The Cylons notice how somebody -- uh oh, Anders -- is groaning and in need of aid, and Biers is like, "A survivor. Hang on, buddy. We'll get you out." They pull the huge chunks of building off him, noting the tunnel behind him, and pull him out by the legs. Needless to say, they are grossed out to find they have a Buccaneer by the toe. Anders thanks them, and Biers brutally kicks him in the head and takes his Gigantic Gun: "Frackin' human. You know he probably set that explosion." Like when you find a chewed-through hole in your flour or sugar or other bulk goods. "What, from the Resistance?" asks Sharon. "Why? No military value to the café." "But humans don't respect life the way we do," says Biers, awesomely, as she pulls the Giant Gun on Anders. Sharon -- clearly not thinking -- grabs for the gun and pulls it away: "No! I won't let you kill him." There's a long staring contest, and Biers is simply horrified. Six speaks up: "She's right. Don't kill him." Lucy Lawless deserves a total Emmy. "Why the fuck not?" she basically asks. Nobody's got a good answer. Gaius hums at Six, who's propped up against a wall a few yards away and very much not wanting to hear from him at the moment, "Why not kill him? You've already killed billions of people. Do you honestly believe one more body's going to weigh any heavier on your conscience?" His anger and disgust present, again. "...Which is something that you don't have, do you?"
The dialogue gets clunkier from here on out, but it's not yet distractingly bad. "...We should interrogate him! Find his accomplices," says Six vaguely, and Biers chuckles. She looks at Anders, then back at Six and Sharon. She nods: "Okay. You can let go now, Sharon." Like Sharon's just being so, so silly about all this. Like the degree to which Sharon is a total fuckup is both hilarious and charming. She checks out Anders, finds the dog tags Kara gave him, and rips them off. Sharon realizes what they are, and Biers reads them: "Thrace, Kara." In the "You Can Always Wank It But That Doesn't Mean You Should Have To, Because You Could Go Blind From All Of This Doing Their Work For Them" category, the tags say "K. Thrace." It's an insert shot, somebody's hands holding the prop, but it's not that hard, dude. Sharon's agog: "Starbuck?" Biers tosses off the line that launched a thousand wanks, including mine way above: "She was on Caprica a couple of weeks ago." Sharon looks around, and Biers delivers a deadly smile: "She escaped with the help of another Sharon." Which is two things: #1, you just missed Big Sis, which sucks; and #2, your ass is getting boxed and all the Eights should be fucking recalled. Sharon thinks fast: "If she gave him this, he meant something to her." Biers takes it back and sneers, "Well, then it's sweet." She tosses it aside and it lands near Six, who grabs it when nobody's looking. Gaius: "You have it in your hand. Hard physical proof of one person's love for another. If only you felt this deeply about us." She says she did, and he looks away. "I do. I love you, Gaius." She looks back at him, his face, his lips. "Where's the tangible proof?" he asks.
Dead but still tangible proof: the body of Hera, Six and Baltar's imaginary child. Sharon weeps, holding onto Helo's hand for dear life, her knuckles white: "I don't understand. She was doing so well!" Cottle is even grumpier when he's lying: "No, she wasn't. I tried to tell you that. Her lungs never fully developed. She finally went into respiratory distress. We couldn't get her intubated in time. We lost her. I'm sorry." Sharon weeps, protesting that she should have been there, and reaching into the incubator to touch Hera. Helo tries to get her somewhat together, pointing out that she's lost a lot of blood, but there's no calming Mommy Sharon. "You murdered her," she grits at Cottle, her face twisted with rage. Helo tries to chill her out, but no dice. Sharon: "Who ordered it? Adama? The President? Who?" Cottle bravely leans down, to comfort her: "I don't kill patients. We did the best we could, but she's dead." Helo watches, swallowing it all. "And that's all there is to it," Cottle concludes. He stands and looks at Helo. "I should be able to release the ashes to you in a few hours," he says, and Sharon goes apeshit: "Murderer," she groans, and stands, taking Cottle by the throat. So scary! "Die!" Sharon is pulled off Cottle immediately, screaming, "You're all murderers! You're all murderers!," as Cottle, still coughing, asks the Marines politely to escort Sharon back to the brig. Helo watches. Sharon screams, on her way out, "Give me my baby!" and it's heartbreaking in the chaos. Helo and Cottle just look at each other, grieving their way.
A Raptor floats toward the Fleet perimeter. Helo and Tyrol open the bay door, wearing pilot suits, lights illuminated. Helo lifts the tiny box, and Chief watches his face as the ashes drift out into space.
Baltar enters his lab and wheels the hatch closed, staring around, gone mental. Six is waiting for him, sitting on a stool. He can't meet her eyes. She looks terribly sad, and lonely, and broken. "You let them murder our child," she says, simply. He begins to cry, and drops to his knees before her, taking her hands: "I am so sorry. I tried. I tried my best." I believe it, even though we didn't get to see it, really. Six: "God's will was that our child should survive." Baltar can't even handle life right now, tears in his eyes. He can't even look at Six. "His will was that she would lead the generation of God's children," she adds. She stands, and lifts Baltar by the shoulders, shaking him: "His will was that you would protect her." He agrees; he knows it. Six throws him against the wall, snakes herself up against his back, and hisses the following into his lovely ear with her teeth bared, in a really kind of amazingly frightening way: "You have committed a monstrous and unforgivable sin and now you and your entire wretched race are going to suffer God's vengeance." Her grief shows through the rage, but that somehow makes it even more troubling. And she's gone, trailing into an angry whisper, and he stands alone, terrified, tears running down his cheeks. Man. Six or Gaius, either way it makes you glad Demeter didn't have access to nuclear armaments, you know?
On Colonial One, a pretty and quiet young woman named Maya is holding the real Hera: "She's so beautiful. I don't know how to thank you. When I lost my baby, I didn't know how I could go on." Cottle is warm and sweet as ever: "Well, I'm glad things worked out for you and this little girl." Maya can't believe anybody would give up "this little angel," and Cottle and Roslin look at each other meaningfully. Tory steps up: "You understand, Maya, that this adoption requires absolute secrecy. The mother is a Pegasus officer, and must remain anonymous. For political and religious reasons." Maya gives her word, and Roslin smiles creepily and faux-sweetly. "Maya, you won't mind if I drop in occasionally?" With a syringe? And a smile? And I'm not actually asking? Laura steps forward and touches the child's head for a moment, and then pulls back like fire. It's a well-done but very creepy moment. Cottle watches Laura fake being a human being for Maya's sake, and whisper: "Go." Once she's gone, Laura turns to Cottle. "Thank you. I know how awful this was for you. But trust me, it was imperative." Close-up on him not feeling great about things. Roslin: "As far as the Cylons know, this child no longer exists. That is a good, good thing." Echoes of the "must, must" at the end of her abortion speech. She's not even trying to convince Cottle -- he doesn't register. He looks away, and we wonder together: how far down does this lady need to go, before she hits? I may not approve of her lately, but I still love her, and I don't want her to actually have to eat the amount of shit she's going to get for this ongoing hubris orgy.
Anders wakes up from the boot to the head, down below, and goes searching for his gun. The three ladies sit on debris, watching him. Biers smiles and holds up his gun: "Is this what you're looking for?" She tosses it to the ground: "You can have it. Here." Sharon's aghast, but Biers is confident. "[I'm] just making it easy for him to get what he wants." Remember when I said Cylons were never cruel? I didn't know all there was to know about D'Anna Biers, when I said that. I also, though, didn't know that I would love it. "Come on," she goads. "I'll give you a head start." This is cruelty. Anders thanks Biers politely, but says he's cool where he is. There's crashing above, and Biers turns her glittering eyes and smile on him again: "Hey, they're coming for us. And you. They'll be very interested in you." It's like how Amanda Woodward was only scary on Melrose Place until she became important enough to have a soul, and then the Scary Bitch Goddess mantle flew through the night and landed on Kimberly Shaw. We know Six too well to be scared of her completely anymore -- we've seen too much of her spirit and her love -- and so now there's Biers, twice as scary and just as mesmerizing. Sharon's like, "Leave him alone. God!," and Biers snaps on her: "Sharon. You're a hero of the Cylon...Now you're just a broken machine who thinks she's a human." Six is angry; Sharon's kind of destroyed by the accuracy. Biers gets all "This is an intervention and we love you" with her: "But you're not a human, Sharon, and you never will be." Sharon speaks before she thinks. "Yeah, well, at least I'm not a murderer." Everybody in the room is like, "Say what?" She continues: "I have a conscience. And I know the difference between right and wrong." Six swallows; Biers laughs: "A murderer is exactly what you are." We flash back to the shooting of Adama. Six is sad some more.
Gaius whispers into Six's ear a piece of verse originally composed for Lee's suicide moment, in which the cast would have been standing with him in the water as he floated between the worlds. "Life is short. But the one's not. Let your heart drift, and your soul will get caught." Six turns to Baltar, born again: "I love you, Gaius. My heart and soul are yours." Their eyes don't look away, truly connecting for the first time in the episode, as the digging equipment gets closer. Gaius: "You know why they wanted you to work with Sharon? So you'd lose your mind. They're gonna box you, darling." Six twitches. "Just like they're going to box Sharon." Six speaks aloud: "We're dangerous." This is pretty much where things get gay, dialogue-wise. "Sharon and I. We're celebrities in a culture based on unity." Biers gives this the "feh," but Six is not done, turning to Sharon: "Our voices count. More than hers. More than others'." And back to Biers, who's wishing she had an airlock handy. "We're 'two heroes of the Cylon,' right? Two heroes with different perspectives on the war." Anders is like, "Lady, my leg hurts!" Nothing's gonna stop the emotionless exposition train, once it's running: "Perspectives based by our love of two human beings. That's why she wanted me to work with you -- so that you'd tell me that Gaius was still alive. She wanted me to lose my mind."
Biers is like, "Yes, but not exactly," and hops on the train too, gun in hand: "No, you're corrupted by your experiences. You're a waste." There are various "gimme a break" faces as everybody looks around at everybody else. Gaius whispers to Six, again coaching her on basic shit in rhyming couplets: "Believe the lies. Ignore the truth. Listen to me. I will show you the proof. Speak from your heart. Say the things that you know to be true." Six addresses Sharon only, speaking from her sweet, scary little robotic heart: "Jealousy, murder, vengeance...They're all sins in the eyes of God. That's what you and I know. That's what they don't want to hear." Boomer takes over as the train's engineer, delivering the hardest lines of all: "Because then they'd have to rethink what they're doing. They'd have to consider that maybe the slaughter of mankind was a mistake!" It's kind of angrifying that probably my favorite moment in the series, when everything switches and starts going backwards, toward unity, toward reconciliation, toward a break in the Cylon line, toward the twenty-first century war, is expressed so poorly. There's another crash above, and Biers ducks some falling crap and anvils. Anders dives for his gun, grabs it, and takes two shots at Biers. She drops, dodging the bullets, and Sharon knocks the gun out of Anders's hands. Biers dives for it and turns it on him. There's an awesome angle here -- is that a fisheye? I don't know anything about anything -- the gun even bigger than before, in the foreground, and Biers's crazy, maniacal face far, far away. She's so awesomely crazy right now. Smiling wildly, she takes aim, and yells hysterically, "God loves me!" Six rises behind her from nowhere, as she's done so many times on Galactica, this time bearing a monstrous chunk of cement, which she drops directly on Biers's head. "See you again soon," she yells archly. Biers turns, and Six slams the rock into the top of her head, killing her.
More crashing signals the continuing arrival of their "help." Six tells Anders to get out while he can, but Anders is confused, to put it mildly. I forgot to mention the vanity plate! On one of the cars, there's a surreal vanity plate behind Anders that says, "SEXYMOM!" It's just a production thing, not even a joke probably, but it's funny because it could really relate to any of the three ladies at this point, according to your math and degree and life-coach transference. "Is this some kind of trick?" Anders asks. Six hands him the dog tags: "You can stay and be tortured if you want. Your call." He's awestruck: "Who are you? What kind of people are you?" Six almost shrugs: "I don't know." Anders holds the dog tags in his fist, a tiny salute to them, and turns to leave. Sharon gets in on the act: "Hey, wait!" she yells, and tosses him his gun. So I guess Anders is Gina now? That's so cool and interesting!
"How long till she downloads and tells them what happened?" asks Sharon, crouching near Biers's body. "We had a lot of people in the café," Six thinks. "At least thirty-six hours till they get to her." She looks piercingly at Sharon: "Long enough." "Long enough for what?" Sharon tighs. "To change things for the better," says Six. Sharon's not sure she gets it. Six turns to look at Gaius, both of them beautiful. "I have never loved anyone more in my life than I love you now," Gaius murmurs, and Six smiles. Finally. You can see her heart knitting itself back together -- he doesn't mean it the way the Chips normally mean it. She's talking to herself. It's big love. The difference between these seemingly disparate loves, between love of herself-as-Chip Gaius and love of Chip Gaius himself and love of God, is thin as a reed. To both Gaius and Sharon, Six speaks: "Our people need a new beginning. A new way to live in God's love." There are tears is Gaius's eyes, in hers. "Without hate," she stresses to Sharon. "Without all the lies." Now Sharon's crying too, the momentousness of this event not escaping anybody. This is what a good apocalypse looks like: three people in a garage, crying with the largeness of their purpose. "All they need is for someone to show them the way. Someone like two heroes of the Cylons." What did I tell you? Six will always start a paramilitary movement once she gets bored. It's just in her nature. "I'm with you," sobs Sharon, and they clasp each other's arms, handshake squared, smiling and crying. The rescue crew -- above them, in the brightness of the real world, outside the broken hell of their harrowing, the mess of the end of the war -- breaks through, light streaming down. How many times can you be reborn? Well, how many does it take? Doral calls out, smiling down on them, "We found them! They're alive!" Bathed in light, Sharon smiles. "Yes, we are." She and Six smile at each other again. "We're alive," breathes Six, so full of hope, and pride. The answer to the question at the end of the Armistice, at the beginning of the story and this war: they're alive. So are we all.
Gorgeous. And from the end of a chapter, to the beginning of a scarier one: Maya cradles Hera, looking out through a Raptor porthole as it climbs out into the anonymity of the Fleet, and the screen goes black as the Raptor slowly flies behind a carrier. Wow.
week: two-part finale begins. A habitable planet is found and everyone gets giddy. Starbuck and Anders meet again. A pilot dies. Gina shows up, and something explodes. Hero Sharon and Hero Six, more than likely, fuck up majorly in some way. Galactica Sharon loses it and goes all Virginia Woolf, but Helo's not giving up on her. Things are afoot!