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Tigh's group of insurgents continue to make really great moral choices up on the Fleet, forming a Star Chamber to carry out secret trials and assassinations of people they believe were Cylon collaborators on New Caprica. Bags over heads, the whole tamale. Jammer bites it, but once "The Circle" sets their sights on Felix Gaeta, Sam Anders opts out because of the general nuttiness of the people involved. Chief gets Starbuck to replace Anders on the secret jury, which is just fine because she has now lost not only her entire mind, but is going door-to-door to borrow more mind that she can then lose. Saul Tigh's drunken CIC antics -- and incredibly terrifying ability to murder anybody at all -- make him the front-runner in the "I Am A Total Fucking Lunatic" competition the crew's got going, butâ¦wait, what's this? Starbuck: tortures Gaeta, admits openly to Anders that her PTSD is responsible -- and that he might be -- and then gets her crazy ass soundly dumped. "I just feel like hurting people all the time," she says. So as per usual, Tigh and Starbuck are in a competition to see who can be more of an ass, and as usual, it's a dead heat. Good to have the show back. Meanwhile, on the new Cylon basestar set, Six dumps Gaius and Three moves in for the kill. Roslin -- after finding out that momentary President Zarek signed off on the Circle's actions with a secret executive order -- is sworn back in, and with her acceptance speechâ¦grants the entire Fleet a general amnesty. (Ellen and Jammer are like, "Thanks, babe!" but everybody else is too busy crying, because that part was fucking amazing.) Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously, Leoben said Kara was gonna K-I-S-S him, and be in love with him, and she said no way, but then: kinda. And then they took her baby away, because it wasn't really her baby, which explains why the Gods were so quiet on the subject of her. Gaeta was the administration mole for the Resistance, which even a dull child should have been able to put together, but Chief had a lobotomy I think during our year in Baltar's hair. Chief's lobotomy explains everything, come to think of it. Also previously, Baltar signed off on the execution of 200 detainees that had been taken from their homes in the middle of the night by the SS. This was so bad that even he had to admit he'd fucked up, but what's interesting is that he still thinks it's the only bad thing he ever did. One of those marked for death was Cally, Chief's wife (lobotomy!), so the entire population of New Caprica mobilized on her behalf and, as an added but negligible bonus, saved Laura Roslin and Tom Zarek into the bargain. One of mobilized citizens who participated in the daring rescue of Cally was Jammer, who was in the SS, but not in a bad way. Just because he was stupid. Then Anders and Tigh were agreed that Tigh should poison his wife, and it was very sad, but she tacitly agreed too. Then Lee and his dad saved everybody from New Caprica -- only it is going to turn out that that is not true -- except for Baltar, who ran off with Cylons after literally handing Hera over to Three.
Now: a group of six shadowy enforcers shove a prisoner into a Viper launch bay, with a bag over his head. So it's going to be a knee-slapper, I take it. ("Mom! Hilarious Battlestar again?!") Oh, look, it's Jammer, Crewman James Lyman. On his knees, choking on his own spit and crying. This is the Circle: From Galactica, Saul Tigh, Chief Galen Tyrol (lobotomy!), and Deck Specialist Seelix; from the Original Caprica Resistance, fighters Samuel Anders, Charlie Connor, and Jean Barclay. Six people from the ground; six people who've been running just like everyone, but now also caged. "Evidence for the following charges have been presented to the Circle," says Seelix, the Circle's voice. "You carried arms for the enemy as you carried out multiple raids against the human population, and that during one raid, 23 people were killed by you and your men during the assault on the temple of Artemis." Jammer screams that it's not true (it was the temple massacre that indirectly drove him to the SS in the first place) but they're not listening. "These are the names of the people killed by you and those under your command," Connor says, forcing his head up. "You look at those names!" Seelix chills Connor out with a word, and continues: "The Circle has examined the evidence and found you guilty of treason and crimes against humanity. Do you have anything to say before sentence is passed?" Jammer -- beautiful and confused and childlike as ever -- protests that he was just trying to help people. "You didn't do a very good job, then, did you?" grits out Tigh, and Anders just wants to get it over with. Get what over with? The murder. The murder they're about to commit.
Jammer jerks his head to Chief, his old boss. "I helped people. I helped lots of people...Chief -- Chief! Chief, I helped Cally. I saved Cally. I saved Cally." He flashes back to the heroic saving of Cally and stumbles over his words. "I'm the one who let her go when they were gonna shoot her. I took her out of line and I said, 'Go! Run right now!' And she did. She ran and she got away, because of me, Chief. I helped Cally. I saved Cally." He doesn't make sense when he talks anymore. Just words. Chief's like, "Yeah, she did somehow get away from the band of secret police and huge chrome robots with guns for hands, didn't she?" But then he loses the train of thought (lobotomy!) and Connor jumps into the gap: "They killed 23 people during the Temple raids! Twelve men, eight women, and three children. Children! My son is on this list. His name is right there. And that frackin' son of a bitch put him there. So saving Cally -- if that happened -- does that make up for killing my son?" That wouldn't make up for selling your son, dude.
Tigh's like, answer the question, Chief. But like, what's he going to say? It's rhetorical and stupid. Chief crouches with Jammer, his old subordinate, whom he's known forever, and shows him the list. "Did you kill these people?" (Maybe there were a lot of Temple massacres and this is a different one? I'm confused.) "Answer me," he whispers, and Jammer talks crazy some more about how it was nuts on the surface: "You make these decisions so fast. You're making an arrest, and people come out with their hands up. But sometimes it's just a trick. They tell you they're surrendering and then they open fire. We thought they were insurgents. It wasn't till after we saw the bodies. What was I supposed to do?" Chief crumples the list and stands up again, addressing the Circle. Does saving Cally make up for it? "No, it doesn't." Seelix continues, "Under the Articles, the punishment for treason is death. Sentence confirmed and carried out on this, the third day of the second Exodus." Jammer whispers, "Oh, Chief," and screams, "I'm sorry!" Anders just wants to get it over with. Get what over with?
The Circle leaves Jammer, James Lyman, Captain of the disbanded New Caprica Police, kneeling on the floor of the launch tube. The airlock closes behind them. He screams, panics, rushes the glass, stares at them on the other side. Pleads. He is beautiful. They can't even hear him. Connor hits the launch tube door, and Jammer is sucked out into space. Connor croaks, "My son. Kevin. He was only seven years old." Barclay comforts him -- they've all been together since the first holocaust, stuck on Caprica together. "Connor, let's go." She leads him away. Anders is hurting. "This isn't what I signed up for." But I guess it's not hurting him enough yet.
In the refugee barracks on Galactica, looks like, the Chief joins his wife, who starts awake. "Am I on watch?" No. Chief takes the baby and looks down at his wife. "Cally? When you were down on their planet, you ran away from the trucks. Did anybody help you? One of the NCP goons or...anybody?" She shakes her head. "What? No." (Whatever, bitch. I don't have anything to say about that, beyond this: are lobotomies contagious? You don't remember that there was a guy in a ski mask who cut off your handcuffs and told you to run, moments before you were shot by giant robots? That part is a little fucking fuzzy for you? How about the fact that you've known Jammer forever, and that no ski mask is so incredibly deceitful that you wouldn't realize it was Jammer? This isn't even Cally-bashing right now: I'm legitimately confused. Because either the acting is fracked or the script is, and with Cally that's always the question, isn't it. So I don't know. Either Cally's making a choice here, a really ugly and petty and resentful one -- which: wouldn't that be something? -- or the actor thinks that Cally's just sleepy and confused about shit, which...makes no sense. Or else I've been right all along, and Cally actually is just a high-functioning mentally retarded adult, which means Chief got a retard pregnant, and also that he hits retards. And I'm not totally enjoying Chief right now, but that is way harsh.)
"... Wait. Yeah. Somebody told me to run. It probably was one of those goons. I haven't thought about it since." See, I think that she's doing this on purpose, but then it is so not involved in the acting at all. Where was the director this day? Did he understand the script at all? Did anybody on set have any thoughts at all on this bullshit? "... Hey, how did you know about that?" Which, again: these are the words of a woman with an agenda, but she's saying it like she's just so yawny and sleepy and doesn't want to deal with this. "I mean, why do you ask?" I'm going to have to go with poor acting choices this round. I hate to say it, but there it is: it's disheartening, in that I have no grudge against the actor, but also because that means the writers want her to be even more sneaky and classless and small and mean than the actor is capable of dealing with. Gross. Chief's like, nothing, never mind. "Go back to sleep." She's like, "Okay," and then she...rolls over and just goes to sleep like nothing happened, except something obviously happened. I cannot fucking deal with her.
Credits. 41,435 souls in the Fleet. Also Sharon Agathon and Cally Henderson Tyrol, who are up in the fucking air right now. By comparison, the population of the Fleet at the time of New Caprica's settlement was 49,550. Between the unsanitary and refugee year down there in Baltar's hair, and the corresponding four months of torture and execution under the occupation, we've lost...over eight thousand people. That's not even taking into account the baby boom down on New Caprica. That's so awful.
Colonial One, where Adama and Tigh and Roslin are all agreeing that nothing that happened was somebody's fault: it was an impossible situation. Tigh says he would have probably done the same, in somebody's position. Roslin isn't entirely sold, but she shakes somebody's hand: "No hard feelings?" It's Gaius Baltar! Who is clearly having a drug-related psychotic break! "None. Mistakes were made. No doubt, there's no question. But the past is the past. I think we can all agree that we'd like to move on." Chip Six appears, railing at them: "You fools, you're being too lenient! He betrayed you. Actively sought your deaths. Doesn't that matter to you? Don't you have any self-respect?" Gaius reminds her, smirking, that nobody can hear her. "Don't make me angry, Gaius," she grits, and Adama looks at him: "You wouldn't like her when she's angry." (Man, I finally saw The Hulk movie. That was like having a drug-related psychotic break, but at least it wasn't horribly fucking offensive and disappointing in the last two minutes like Haute Tension, because it wasn't that great at any point.) Wait, what happened? Is this is a dream? Adama and Six are in cahoots? Of course they are: daddy and mommy. I also like the note that Tigh would have done the same, like he's some kind of fucking moral high bar. Wish fulfillment is so fucking creepy. Cf. this shit right here: "I've always wanted you," says Roslin, taking off his glasses. Even Gaius knows that's viciously unlikely, and gets sad again. "Oh, no. I'm dreaming, aren't I?" She smiles and leans in. "Yes, you are." And she kisses the hell out of him. (Roslin finally gets some play, but it's with Gaius and it's a nasty dream sequence. Everything you want, in the worst possible way.) Gaius jerks awake on a basestar. The reason we know it's a basestar room, though we've never seen them, is because it is AWESOME-looking. Chrome room, red band around the walls, pulsing, and bright lights everywhere. Gaius is naked in this room, and his bathrobe is hanging on the wall. His bed is...baroque, to say the least. It's an overstuffed purple fainting couch in a bright white room. A Centurion watches him dress, and they stare at each other. I bet if you sleep in that bed you dream all the dreams of all the hookers that ever owned it.
Anders and Starbuck hang in the Pilots' barracks (I guess, except why is Anders there? Is he a nugget?) and he asks her -- as though he wouldn't know -- if she managed to get any sleep. "Sleep when you're dead," she grunts, as they dress. "Got my gear out of storage. Never thought I'd see any of this stuff again." He leans in to kiss her and she stops him. "Just don't, okay?" Another Pilot passes between them, and it's broken. That easy.
On the real Colonial One, Roslin's meeting with Zarek. (How awesome if she got some play right now, except there's no way to edit it that the sexless fanboys wouldn't be like, "Apparently this episode is about how Laura Roslin is a whore." Just like with the miniseries.) They discuss the new Quorum of Twelve, which will be sworn in in three days, and Zarek exposits how as President, he'll nominate her as VP, they'll confirm her, and then he'll resign. "The whole thing should take less than an hour." I was going to say she should pay, and learn a little something about consequences, but then I think about the last year and it just feels nasty to say. Tacky. She'll fuck up gloriously in no time, I'm sure, but I don't really feel like she needs to earn this. "You're stepping down without a fight? Means Tom Zarek wants something. So why don't you put your cards on the table and let's see if it's a price that I'm willing to pay." (He's like, "The price is that hot ass!" and then they make out... In five, four, come on, three... Nope, not happening. Why won't this ring grant my wishes anymore?) Zarek calls himself a realist -- because one thing activists and terrorists are willing to accept is political reality -- and admits he knew he wouldn't be in office long one way or the other. "And the Admiral's made it quite clear that he'd like nothing better than to put me in a cell if I try to hang on to power." Roslin calls this Tigh-style coup "a favor," since it's Bill and not Saul, and explains how her brain worked that out: "You and I both know how impossible it would be to govern this Fleet without the backing of the military." Um. If the government isn't backed by its military, you have what's called South America. It goes poorly. I want Laura to be President again, because I fear change, but like: man up, Bill. You could play with Tom too. "Even so, I want to be included in the new government. I don't wanna be on the outside looking in anymore." Maybe Tom can learn something about politics after all. "Okay, okay. You stood up to Baltar on New Caprica, you nearly lost your life for your trouble. This Fleet needs that kind of courage. The vice presidency is yours if you want it, Tom." They shake hands, laughing. He's going to fuck this up, watch.
Galactica CIC: sparks still flying, but this time it's because of a soldering gun and not being shot all over the place and nearly killed. Gaeta enters in civvies and Tigh is on him with a quickness. "You gotta be kidding! Who gave this man permission to enter the CIC?" Helo tells him it was Adama: "Communications took some serious hits during the rescue, and Mr. Gaeta's offered to help with the repairs." Tigh freaks out about how Gaeta is a turncoat and collaborator and contributed to the deaths of thousands, but yet: "The old man needs his phones fixed, and suddenly, all is forgiven." Helo tries to do his Helo thing: "Cylons find us, we're gonna need every hand we've got." Tigh's like, they totally did already? "The Cylons found us, Mr. Agathon." (Watch very carefully whenever a New Caprican interacts with somebody who stayed with the Fleet during the occupation. I have this feeling that the whole conflict is going to be central, like maybe civil war central, and sooner rather than later. I don't blame them, though: the New Caprica survivors have like no sense of humor about anything.) "Your friend Gaeta was on the welcoming committee." He gets right the hell in Gaeta's face: "Hey! Look at me. Long as you're here, maybe you can help me out. I'm missing something. I lost it in detention. Since you're so buddy-buddy with the Cylons, maybe you know where it is? How 'bout it?" There's spit coming out. "Do you know where my eye is?" Damn. Adama comes in shouting Saul's name, and he barks orders at the crew before dragging Saul off for a little talk. Saul stumbles. It wasn't just his eye they took, and worse: they didn't make him cut out his own eye. It was the resistance that did that.
"They have a lot of work in the couple of weeks. I need you to get some sleep. Get rested and get ready, all right?" Tigh tells him he's fine, and screams back into CIC: "And you can tell that toaster-lover over there that I am still the XO of this ship!" Adama realizes it's not getting better without coffee and a shower, and lays hands on his friend. "Let's go." Tigh struggles, and Bill's finally like, "You're embarrassing yourself, Saul." That's the Tigh I'm used to! "You're the one that should be embarrassed. Letting one of Baltar's henchman walk around like nothing's happened... " Adama officially orders him to go sleep it off, and Tigh gets poetic again: "Oh, yeah. Just go to sleep. Forget about it all, just forget about everything. Well, I'm not forgetting. I'm not gonna forget." Tigh slumps off for another drink or something, and Gaeta is very damned sad. (I kind of feel like, collaborator or not, Gaeta's still got some moral cred for the time he stopped Tigh from stealing the election, you know? Although that went not so well.)
The Circle. "The charges are carrying arms for the enemy in a time of war, shooting three civilians, and collaboration with the enemy. I call the vote." They vote unanimously to murder her: a lady named Chadwick, currently aboard the Monarch. Barclay tells them she'll take care of it with her people there. Anders asks if anybody has a cigarette -- because when you've spent a year soaking up rads in a nuclear strike zone, what you should do is throw the finger at cancer -- and Chief asks how many more they've got to get through. Fifty-seven, Barclay confirms. Fifty-seven secret trials, and only three days to get them done. "We all knew there was a clock when we signed on," says Tigh roughly, which means there's something not connecting here. There's official sanction from somewhere, with three days to work with...God-DAMN it, Tom Zarek. You moron! This is worse than the black market! "Most of these fracks are so guilty they stink," spits Connor. "I could get through 50 of these things in an hour." Um, cool? Tigh slams his head into the table, drawing very fine, very specific lines around the morality of this. "You think we're a bunch of thugs [yes] handing out punishment on a whim [totally]? Jammer didn't get airlocked because you thought he was guilty [actually he was, or else you'd be doing this in public]. There was evidence. He was tried and convicted by this Circle [and not a government body]. This is about justice. You got that? Justice!" Nope, nope, nope. This is vigilantism. Which doesn't really bother me, but it goes back to the robot rape debate, which is: why are you doing it? Are you doing it to preserve the safety of the Fleet somehow? To punish your enemies? Or are you doing it because somebody else entirely took your eyeball, your wife, your loved ones? Revenge isn't justice no matter how many times you say it. I like Tigh, but this time he's wrong. There are systems in place. There is a government and elected body of officials, there are courts and courts martial. This is personal, and that's guns in the Temple. Connor, shaken, is like, okay, dude. Tigh apologizes, saying he likes Connor and Connor's a good guy, and then calls the case. Seelix: "Felix Gaeta. Charges are collaborating with the enemy and crimes against humanity." Chief's face gets worried; everybody stares at everybody else.
"I don't wanna do this. Do you think I like it? I stood beside Gaeta in the CIC for almost four years," Tigh says. "He was like family. But the fact remains he was chief of staff to Gaius Baltar. And that alone is enough to convict him." How so? Anders says they have zero hard evidence on Gaeta: "No witnesses -- nothing. All we do know is that he worked for Baltar. That's it." But Sam, didn't you just hear Tigh make up new laws about how that's enough to convict him? Just now this very second? Chief balks too: "We need something specific." Tigh goes, "You want specific?" And then takes a long time getting there, claiming that Baltar wasn't in charge of anything in particular, that Gaeta was totally the brains and ran the government. "Everyone knew that," Tigh says. "He ran the operation." Which is totally true, except for how you have to trade the name "Gaeta" for "the Cylons." Which "everybody" also knows, and which has the advantage of being true. "He did the paperwork. He approved the death lists," Tigh says. Chief asks how he can know that. "Did you see him approve one single death list?" Tigh produces a distribution list with Cally's name on it and also Gaeta's. I don't know where that came from, unless it's a cc: situation, because I remember quite clearly the day that Gaeta saw this particular list, and wigged out. I think there's something I don't get here, because the facts aren't lining up. Anders says whatever it says, it's still circumstantial. "We don't know what Gaeta did or didn't do when he saw that list." (Throw a wild hissy, is what he did.) Barclay sides with the crazies, surprising Anders. "No, Sam. You see a death list like that, you know innocent people are gonna die, and you do nothing about it? He's guilty." Connor calls the question. Seelix: "The question of the innocence or guilt of Felix Gaeta has been called. The Circle will vote. I vote guilty." Connor and Tigh and Barclay vote guilty. Anders gets up to leave: "Don't bother. I'm done." Seelix is like, "We're voting," but Anders clarifies that he's done with the Circle. "War's over for me, I'm sorry." Neat. I like Sam. Connor waves it off and tries to get back to the vote. "Still four to none, Chief... " and then Jean Barclay steps in, protesting that they need six votes. Conner's not feeling it, but Chief sides with her. "No, screw you! We're a jury. That's how it was set up. We need six votes. We don't have six votes, I'm out too." Tigh agrees. But besides the people that weren't radicalized enough by the occupation and mistreatment itself, and the people who were up in the Fleet the whole time, who's a cast regular that's fucked up enough and angry enough and got hurt enough down there to...oh.
Meanwhile, Raiders are swarming around Gaius's basestar, and inside a Centurion steps out of the room with all the deference a nine-foot chrome CGI robot can muster, to allow Three to enter. In a white Marilyn dress, looking FLY. "How are you, Gaius?" Still alive, he grumps. She grins secretively and hands him some pills, then sits down near him on the whore couch. He stands up pissily. "You'll have to excuse me, I'm slightly confused. How long have I been here exactly?" Three days. "So it's taken you three days to remember where I was?" As he takes the pills, Three tries to explain. "No one's forgotten you, Gaius. It's just there's been some controversy about whether or not you should've been let on board or not." He hisses that his value is unquestionable, and she writhes on his couch awesomely: "There'll always be a question. You are a human." Gaius falls into his usual trap of thinking he has a pot to piss in. "Now look, I helped you! I gave you Sharon's child." Three's like, word -- and thanks -- but also what I just said. "The child's rescue did weigh in your favor." (Briefly: that word "rescue" just clicked. The kid's half-Cylon. You tell me the moral difference between Laura Roslin kidnapping Hera and hiding her on New Caprica, and what Three's done here. Just because A is an asshole doesn't mean B is blameless, and I'm seeing a lot of that around these parts lately.) "However, the vote's deadlocked. Three in favor of your being allowed to stay, and three against. With one model still undecided." She practically winks at him, inappropriately: "The fact is, the decision rests with the Sixes." She watches for his reaction, which is decidedly: vomit-y.
Lee brings reports of "missing persons" to Adama's office, where Adama suddenly and spontaneously exposits all over everything that we apparently "left thousands of people on that planet." (Thousands? Really? In a rescue op coordinated by Tory Foster? Doubtful. Maybe "left" as in buried, but not thousands stranded. The whole point of the rescue was that Adama was like, "I'm not going to do that a fifteenth time. I have already left huge batches of humanity to their doom sixty-seven times today. This eighty-ninth time, I cannot do it.") Lee explains, this is people who specifically were survivors but have disappeared since the Second Exodus. "Jammer, for instance." Adama says he saw him as latterly as yesterday afternoon. "Yeah, but he didn't report at muster this morning, bed check negative, sickbay negative. It's like he just vanished." Total of 13, two on Galactica and 11 elsewhere in the Fleet: "Every one of them confirmed as a survivor by multiple witnesses and then poof! Gone." (Adama's like, "Oh my God, have we located Cally?" and he grabs his gun and Lee has to tackle him before he gets on the damn phone himself if that's what it takes.) Adama tells him to keep him posted, and Lee runs off: "I have a date with a jump rope." (Come! On! She's not that bad! I actually really like her this season! ... What? Oh, right. Just another intro to a fat joke. Sorry.) Bill stares at his fat-ass son and Lee gets defensive, making up a whole new system of weights and measures: "Hey, I've dropped half a stone!" Adama tells him to keep jumping, and Lee manages to leave without telling him to go to hell.
Starbuck watches Gaeta in the Galactica Mess. He's, needless to say, sitting alone. Like, pretending to do comms, or maybe administrating the sugar packets or something. She approaches and sits, genuinely friendly. "Hey. How ya doing?" He's grateful, and, as one does, asks her in response how she is doing. Which is his first mistake, although you wouldn't know it. "I'm good," she says guardedly. And you need a PhD in Starbuck to understand why this would be the fucking point you walk away. "Why do you ask?" she says, which is a CODE RED. "Well," he stupidly continues, "I heard about your situation. You were... " CODE BLACK. She'll have his ass for this. "... Right," she says breezily, and thinks about his eyes. "I just try not to think about it anymore. You know?" She eats and looks back at him. It's a different girl in there now. "Kinda like you. Sitting in your plushy little office on Colonial One doing all of Baltar's dirty work for him. Probably never even thought about what was happening to me, right?" The hidden command: Do not even think about what was happening to me. Don't mention it, don't look at it, don't witness it. "I didn't know about your situation. If I had, I would've tried to get you out." Get your own ass out! Now! You are begging for it! She hums at him, tight-lipped. She folds herself up like origami in a new shape she's never had before. "Like I've just said about 50 times now, I was serving the legal President of the Colonies. We all elected him, remember?" The mess starts to clear out. I mean to say that the ambient heat coming off this table is such that even the stupidest crewman is getting the vibe. "So that's supposed to excuse it?" Gaeta exhales. "What do you want me to say? Maybe I could've done more. But I thought that when the Cylons landed, it was important for me to keep my job. To help from the inside." Starbuck offers a reinterpretation of that story, mainly that his job was "propping Baltar up and letting the Cylons walk all over us." Gaeta protests, talks about the dead drops and Jake the dog and the Cylon positions and all the memos, and she couldn't care less. "Hooray, Felix. You're a frackin' hero." Gaeta stares at her and leaves, realizing there's no way out of this one. She stares and watches him go; in the corner is Seelix, watching. Watching them both. Weighing the votes. Stacking the deck. Making a choice. ("Dude, why does Jacob hate Seelix so much? Cavil's a dick!" This is why, this right here: She'd co-opt Kara's extended abuse trauma to take "revenge" on somebody that never hurt her. Leaving Cavil in the dirt without even suicide as an option was just a pointer to the fact that eventually we'd end up here, now.)
Also: Never duplicate your act breaks. (Hey, Espenson.) You can't cut to commercial with the poundy drums going "oh girl what about Gaeta" the whole time, because A) it's already clear he's going to be fine, because this character is necessary to the spectrum of response to occupation in the ongoing story, but B) it just underlines that fact if you keep screaming at me about it. Not that the scintillating conversation about jump-roping would really work for an act out, but it would have been more balanced, in terms of the show moving forward, to have this scene before the break, and then lead from Seelix in the mess to the meeting of the Circle, to see what she was thinking. If you put a Baltar scene for the act out, it tells you we're going to spend a lot of time on the basestar, and if it's a Baltar/Six breakup scene, it lends weight to his entire story, which he kind of needs at this point.
Anyway, that was just particularly glaring just now. Basestar. Baltar wakes and his eyes slowly clear, revealing a Six staring sadly down at him. Caprica. "Whatever feelings I had for you have to stop. I allowed my feelings to cloud my judgment. I protected you. I gave your species a second chance. I even turned against a sister Cylon, and for what? I'm Cylon, Gaius. Somehow I lost sight of that." He stands up and stares at her. "You are much, much more than a machine. You're a person. A real person. A woman. And you're in love with me. And it hurts. I know it hurts." He starts crying. This is weird. Too many resonances with Gina and POW stuff that I don't think is intended. Too much begging, whereas we know the second she dumps him, Chip Gaius is going to start smarming around and pouring her martinis again. That was awesome. "But believe me, I am the only one that can make it better. Don't you see? I am the only one." So...does he actually think she's Gina? That's Gina talk. It perverts the entire Gina thing, actually. Which you'd think would be hard. "No, this has to end," says Caprica, and walks to the door. But here's the thing: she's the swing vote. If Caprica joins the Sixes, and the Sixes vote against the Eights (I'm guessing) and Threes, that's 4-3 against, and he's dead. Spaced. So at some point during his girly screaming, it stops being about love and starts being about survival. (Which, explain the difference to a narcissist; I doubt he knows how fast his mind is working right now.) "You need me. You need me! Admit it! Admit that you need me." He tries to follow her out, and Centurions block his door. And the argument shifts again, this time to fear and something you might mistake for love: "And I need you too! Did you hear me? I need you too." He turns back to his room and mumbles to himself: "Maybe I should've started with that." Oh, Gaius. Oh, boys.
Circle. "It's a jury," Tigh explains to the new member. "I wanna make that clear. It's not about settling scores or personal grudges. It's a jury." Chief continues: "We're just dealing with the worst of the worst. People that did more than put on an NCP uniform or make a deal with the Cylons." (That is the darkest humor ever: "We killed Ellen and Jammer the other day, as a warm-up, but now we're going after the real bad guys." That's intentional and brilliant, wording it that way.) "They're the killers," crazies Barclay all over the place. "The real traitors." Starbuck is like, but none of this is legal, right? Not that she'd have a problem with it, at all -- that's clear -- but she's getting her footing. "No, no," Chief insists. "It's legal." (Llllllllllllllllllllobotomy!) Seelix hands over the "death order" that Gaeta apparently invented, dictated to himself, typed up for himself, signed off as a notary public, and then carried out. On the people that are still alive. "You gotta be kidding me!" Kara snorts, and they have her. Just like that. Using Kara's captivity, which clearly they're all aware she was detained and not in the usual way, is worse than guns in the Temple. Girlfriend is unhinged. They don't any of them get a pass on this one. Gross me the fuck out.
"That's why we need to know right now," says Tigh. "Are you in or out?" She clears her throat. "In." He lets her study the kangaroo evidence before kangaroo court comes back into kangaroo session, but Kara's stuck on the huge lie part they all want so desperately to believe: "You telling me that Gaeta saw this list and didn't do a damn thing about it?" Yes, even though it's a fantasy. Well, not "telling" exactly, more like "presenting you with circumstantial evidence and hoping you see red." "We have no idea of knowing what Gaeta did or did not do when he saw the list," Chief says hurriedly, because this is totally totally legal and a really good idea except for how his stupid wife managed to just remember that he murdered Jammer the other day, but other than that it's all rules and regs from here on out. Lobotomy! ("In other words," Cavil explains -- and it's a good explanation for something that's always confused me, complete with air-quotes -- "they're worried what 'God' might think if they commit murder: they're covering their existential asses." Speaking of this very death order, and all.)
Kara immediately votes, on seeing the "evidence," and breathes convincingly about "my Gods, the whole thing's like a bad dream only we woke up and the traitors are all still here" and that shit. She's just as culpable as them. In some ways more, because at least she knows she's suffering from violent PTSD right now, and she just doesn't care. Seelix asks for Chief's vote, but Anders interrupts. Tigh tells him to get lost, but he demands to speak to his wife. Tigh rolls his eye at her. "We already have your vote. Take a break."
Out in the corridor, Anders is worried: "I quit because I'm not looking for ways to keep killing people." She shakes her head. "I need this, Sam." Ouch. That is so fucked. "So...what, throwing a few people out an airlock is gonna make you feel better about yourself? 'Cause believe me, those aren't the people that kept you locked in that room." And she says the words I was really afraid about: "They'll do." She says they will pay, not just for her and her pain, but for every single other person "we left back on that planet" (?), because "someone has gotta pay." She tells him to either get with it, or get lost. "Is that what you want, Kara? You want me to leave?"
Back inside, Tigh is needling Chief: "He doesn't wanna say he's guilty because Gaeta is such a good guy. Right, Chief? Everyone likes Gaeta, so let's let him off the hook. Let's just look the other way on this one. [Heh.] Well, a lot of good people had to pay the price for what they did; choices they made on New Caprica. Like my wife." Everybody stares at him, shocked. Interesting. That really was just a deal between Anders and Tigh, to protect the Resistance and the second Exodus. This hurts. "That's right. Ellen collaborated, gave the Cylons information on the Resistance, and she died for it. Because that's the price of collaborating with the enemy. And I liked her a lot more than I like Gaeta." (Me too, frankly; not that I dislike Gaeta but he's kind of boring, and Ellen...was not.) That's so hard! I'm glad he said it out loud, though. I mean, they should know. He's like a crash course in being for real for real.
Out in the hall, Katee Sackhoff is the glorious queen of the entire planet of acting as Kara tries to explain to her husband that she has lost her entire mind. "Look, Sam. I'm in a different place now. I -- I don't know how else to explain it to you. But I got out of that cell, and it's like someone painted the world in different colors. And I look at you, and I want to tear your eyes out just for looking at me." He shakes his head, crying. They met on the Farm, you know? He knows what that means. What she's saying. That you get punished for witnessing somebody else's weakness. (She's turning into her mother.) "I just wanna...hurt someone, and it might as well be you. So you should probably go before that happens." Are you kidding me with this? My stomach just flipped over at that one and I've seen the episode like three times.
Seelix is after blood: "Baltar signed death warrants, organized murder squads. He collaborated with the enemy from day one." Chief reminds her whose mockery of a trial this is, and Tigh doesn't see a "Godsdamned" difference between Gaeta and Gaius. "He's right," says Seelix. "A lot of people died because of them, Chief." Chief snaps shut. "Fine. Guilty."
Samuel Anders holds out his wife's dog tag. The ones she gave him on Old Caprica, as a promise. A ridiculous, impossible promise that came true. "Remember this? I don't want this anymore." He walks away and she says his name softly. He comes back, and she kisses him tenderly goodbye. As fucked up as this is, I'm kinda proud of her. I don't know how bad it got during the year on New Caprica, with her and Lee, but I do know what we have seen between them, and face it, "Let's both get out of this before I tear your eyes out" is a huge, huge step for her to make, compared to hate-fucking and the usual stuff. She slept with Gaius Baltar, for Christ's sake. Let's give her a little credit. So this kiss goodbye ends up sweet, even though it's a PTSD case getting a divorce so she won't kill her husband, right before she heads into her secret cabal where they hand out secret death sentences based on little to no evidence. (Compare to Ellen and Saul when she died; same vibe.) She leaves him standing in the corridor, illuminated, and goes back to the darkness of the Circle.
Later, Seelix and Connor march Gaeta -- head in a bag -- to a launch bay. "Turn around! On your knees. On your knees!" screams Connor, and rips tape off his mouth. "Felix Gaeta, you've been tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity by a circle of your peers, as duly authorized by the President of the Colonies." And that's how Seelix kicks it to commercial. For the third time running.
"If you have any words to offer in your own defense, now is the time." Chief begs him to speak, and Connor "begs" him to speak, nastily asking to hear the story about how "hiding behind Baltar's skirt" was actually Gaeta's way of "helping the insurgency." Barclay orders him to say something, and he grits his teeth and shows them what insurgency actually looks like. "What's the point? I already tried to explain it. I'm not gonna beg." Tigh tells him it's too bad he didn't "grow that spine four months ago," unnecessary, and he stares up at them. Seelix and Barclay turn away. Kara...does not: "Beg." She begins to kick him. "Beg! Beg! Beg!"
Felix Gaeta sat up there in Colonial One and didn't save her. Twenty-four hours a day, the only thing we know for sure is that he didn't save her. It's the one thing he did constantly for four months. And that's not really the problem here, because Kara Thrace's mother was a bad woman, and she hurt people smaller than herself. And Kara grew up and was so hard, and so fast, and so strong, and such a good Pilot and such a good shot that nobody could ever make her feel small again. And then somebody came along that was harder and faster and stronger than her, and she learned what it was like to be small again. Powerless. And they gave her a little Kacey, that looked just like her, as a little girl, and she told Kacey she was sorry, and that she loved her, and that she would always protect her. That she wouldn't betray things or hurt people just because they were smaller than herself. And then they took Kacey away too, and she remembered that she was always going to be smaller than somebody. And now Gaeta's on his knees, refusing to beg. So he needs to be smaller.
"Beg! Beg! Beg!" Tigh tries to stop her: "Thrace," but she shrugs him off. "No! Beg. Come on, Felix. Tell 'em how you were actually working for the Resistance the entire time. Come on! Tell 'em all about the important information that you were giving up. Tell 'em about all the messages, and the dog bowl, and everything else. Just tell me about... " Chief pulls her off, finally. "What did she just say? What did you say to her? Tell me. What did you say to her?" Gaeta shrugs. "There was a yellow dog bowl. It was a signal. It meant there was a message in the garbage dump. I turned it over. It was a signal. And then there was a message in the garbage dump." Chief whips out a box cutter, praying to the Gods. Tigh's astonished, Kara's sickened. "You were wondering who the source was, Colonel. There's no other way he could've known. He's the only other one that would know about it. He's the reason we know about the death lists. He's the reason I saved Cally." (Aw, man. She's getting credit for this shit?) "He's the reason we're on this ship. He's the one who gave us the inside information. There's our source, Colonel." Gaeta stands. "I did what I could. I don't know what else I could've done." What you could is the exact same amount anybody else ever gave. Don't stress out. He leaves, they go fuck themselves. Kara takes off pissed, and the rest of the Circle just kind of disintegrate.
In Colonial One, Adama demands to know what the hell the Circle was about. "It's all perfectly legal," explains Zarek. "You'll find a signed executive order on file authorizing a secret jury of six men and women to try, sentence, and execute people guilty of extraordinary crimes while collaborating with the enemy in a time of war. There's also a death warrant with my signature for every conviction." Adama calls an end to Zarek's presidency with a quickness. "Your presidency is a farce." Roslin makes an appeal to Zarek's sense of fairness and democracy, reminding him of due process and the right to a jury trial. (It would be so weird if this were about Gitmo, Iraq, Afghanistan, a thousand other atrocities. Wouldn't that just be so weird?) "They have a jury. But they don't get lawyers. They don't get to showboat for weeks and months on end. They don't get to blame the system and they don't get lasting fame as martyrs or innocent people just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They just disappear." That's so beautiful I just voted Republican in my boxers.
"Now," Zarek continues, "in the gray twilight between the long night of the Occupation and the dawn of a new era, you come into office clean, without their blood on your hands." Which is...um, compelling. I'm so confused now. Are secret trials and war crimes like Zarek's version of flirting? That is so hot. "That's very poetic," Roslin stutters. "However." (Here we go! I love the Roslin "however" marker.) "You have a problem, Mr. President. Everyone by law is entitled to a trial with representation. Everyone. It is not an option to be discarded at the president's whim." He asks if she's honestly thinking she'll get justice by going public. "Come on, Laura. You're not that naive. Let me tell you what's gonna happen if these cases go to trial. It'll consume this Fleet for months, maybe years. People will be lining up to testify against their neighbors. It'll be a circus -- an entertainment for the mob. And you'll be signing death warrants almost every day. Is that how you wanna spend your term, Laura? As executioner-in-chief?" She smiles sadly and turns away, totally grossed out, caged in, boxed up. He's right.
A crazy-looking priest swears Roslin in, aboard Colonial One. How many times has she become president? It seems like a whole lot. She shakes the Priest's hand and turns to the press. "Thank you. Thank you all, for once again entrusting me with this high office of civil service. Today's a new beginning for all of us. We share a unique destiny" -- cut, of course, to Starbuck at her locker, hanging her dogtags inside. to Zak's ring -- "that our future is ours to shape, and our past cannot be forgotten. A new day requires new thinking. And while I had intended on using this occasion as an opportunity to announce a formation of a special prosecutor's office charged with investigating acts of collaboration with the enemy" -- Tigh settles into his quarters, remembering Ellen -- "I have decided instead that a different gesture is called for on this, the first day of my term as your president." Zarek, in the audience. "We all feel the need for justice, and we all feel the need for vengeance." Zarek looks down at this. "And telling the difference between the two can be difficult at times. We are all victims of the Cylons." On the basestar, Gaius watches sadly as Caprica leaves a suit of clothes in his room.
"None of us can be impartial. I certainly can't. So today I am forming a commission on truth and reconciliation to hear our stories, and record them for posterity. There will be no prosecutions." Felix enters the CIC officer's locker room and puts his stuff back; hangs his tags. "I am issuing a general pardon for every human being in this Fleet." I started crying like WHOA right there. I'm a sucker for big forgiveness. God is the last thirty seconds of Fight Club. What do you do when you can't get out? Turn into something else. "This will not be a popular move today. But I truly believe that this is the only way for us to move forward in strength in a spirit of healing and reconciliation." Tory gazes at her in a spirit of healing and reconciliation and, some posters believe, hot-blooded lust. I don't think so; I think that she was so upset last week because she's been part of Hera's life exactly as long, and exactly as deep, as either Maya or Laura herself, and that's huge. "I thank you for your continued patience and courage. Good day." Adama begins to clap, giving the military okay, and everybody follows suit. And in the mess hall, Chief enters and is offered a seat at a table, but joins Gaeta instead. Gaeta looks at him, thinks for a second, and goes back to eating. General amnesty for everybody. I bet week is going to be twice as horrible, just to make up for the nice feelings we're having right now.