Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nein Kampf
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 20 | Aired on 03.09.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Holy balls. Okay. The guys pinned down on Caprica fight for about two seconds, and then the Cylons call a cease-fire; the Resistance is brought back to Galactica. Dean Stockwell admits that he's a Cylon, and tells Adama and Roslin that DEMAND LOVE has pulled out of the occupation and would like to apologize, no harm done. The irony is not lost on Madame Airlock, who answers the "How Far Down" question by using Tigh, Tory, and Dualla to fix the election in her favor -- but only after scaring the shit out of Gaius with her recovered memories of his affair with Six. Tipped off by Gaeta, Adama persuades Roslin that it's a bad idea, and she relents; welcome to President Gaius Baltar, whose second order of business is to settle the planet, now named New Caprica. His first order of business is to visit Gina, who makes love with him, then nuclear-bombs herself, Cloud 9, a couple other ships, and the fourth wall. Even the docu-style cameras aren't safe when you're about to smash your show open on such a fundamental level. Kara basically fracks Anders in front of Lee and disses Dualla, and acts like an asshole. We jump forward a year. I'm not making any of this up; it's not a dream. Gaius is the President, the settlement proceeds apace, the Fleet's ships are running skeleton crews. Anders is sick, and Dualla and Lee are in no mood to share their hoarded meds. (Kara and Anders are married, Kara's got long hair; Lee and Dee are possibly married, she may be his XO on Pegasus, and he is fat and has stupid hair.) Laura has gone back to teaching on the settlement, but she and Maya (foster mother of Cybrid Hera -- now renamed Isis) have a hand in an anti-Baltar movement headed by Chief and the ever more sickening Cally, who is pregnant. Gina's last atomic middle finger reaches the Cylons, a light-year away, and that's the length of our reprieve: the Cylons show up with a quickness, so you can thank both Gaius and the assholes on the Pegasus for everything that comes next. As Galactica and Pegasus jump away, Six and Eight from "Downloaded" show up terrifyingly on Colonial One and explain their "new beginning": the Cylon can best express their true nature not through genocide and hate, but by making New Caprica into a concentration camp, "protecting" and "loving" the humans to death. Baltar offers humanity's surrender, and Sentinels Riefenstahl their way down Main Street, New Caprica. We lose. Suck on that 'til October. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Two episodes ago, things looked rosy. The Sharon last seen getting murdered by Cally claimed she had a conscience, that she knew "the difference between right and wrong." Six (Gaius's flesh-and-blood girlfriend from the miniseries) proclaimed her love for Chip Gaius: "My heart and soul are yours." Six and Sharon realized that they were dangerous, "celebrities in a culture based on unity." They realized that they were two "heroes of the Cylon," who had "different perspectives on the war," based on their love of Chief Tyrol and Gaius Baltar. "Jealousy, murder, vengeance," they decided, were all "sins in the eyes of God." The slaughter of mankind was a "mistake." They set loose Sam Anders with a gun and admitted that they were new, that they didn't know "what kind of people" they were. Six and Sharon promised each other to "change things for the better," and decided to create "a new beginning, a new way to live in God's love. Without hate. Without all the lies." They promised to "show them the way." Proudly, they proclaimed that they were alive. That was a month ago. It was very exciting, if you -- like your humble recapper, like Helo -- believed in the Cylon capacity for humanity. In the development of them. Some shit's happened between then and now.
Now. Starbuck's rescue party is still pinned down on Caprica, having rendezvoused with Anders's Resistance cell. (The credits come between the previouslies and the teaser, which is long enough to be an act. 49,550 souls in the Fleet. For a sec.) Centurions at close range, people still in a huddled group on the ground. Starbuck and Anders resolve to fall back to a bivouac the Resistance has set up. They charge up the hill, Sharon leading the stragglers, as ever.
Up in Galactica's sickbay, Cottle is speaking. "Jaw set nicely. You're done here. I'm kicking you out of here and sending you back to work." He's talking to Cally, whose face is fucked up. She can barely speak, jaw wired shut. "Work like this?" she asks him. Cottle cracks some crotchety joke about how women always complain, and tells her she has a visitor. It's Chief Tyrol. Who fucked up her face. He fidgets painfully, and she looks across at him, love in her eyes. I have this rule that if somebody hits you, even once, it's over. Circumstances, details, whatever. Men don't do that. Humans are better than that. Somebody hits you, pack your bags and don't look back. If it's meant to be, it's going to be with a person so unlike the person that hit you that it won't matter. It's not days, it's not months: it's miles. That's a person who crossed the line, and that means you're looking at a person who can cross the line, who is not somebody that needs a girlfriend. By the time they're ready, they won't be them anymore: they'll be somebody who can't cross the line. I'm not saying Chief's a bad guy; that's oversimplifying: I'm saying Chief is a guy who doesn't need a girlfriend right now. (And that I hate Cally, and Helo? He doesn't need a boyfriend either. Remember the wrench.) It's not that Chief's a spouse-abuse case -- I want to be very clear about what I'm saying here -- he's not inside their Venn diagram: they're inside his. People, people in real life, don't just end up like that. "Cylon Girlfriend" is the same as any other backstory, and earns just as much pity and sympathy for the perp, but: pack your bags.
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