Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Nurture Girl
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.20.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.When last we met our Rag-Tag Fleet, they were in a standoff about the Temple of Five down on the Algae Planet, Boomer was taking pot-shots at Athena's living situation, and Three finally made her move to break up the Happy Threesome, heading down toward the Temple while Anders and Apollo squabbled over whether Starbuck was going to be killed by robots. This week⦠All those things are taken care of. It's pretty exciting and very well done, with some pretty high emotional points and an interesting start for this new chapter of the story. Lee calms Sam down about Kara by sending Dee (!) to save her. The only person less interested in this storyline than your average viewer. Of course she does it, because she's Dee, and somehow manages not to look like a total chump in the process, because she is Dee. Kara gets through the experience through massive amounts of drugs and getting slapped around, because she's Kara. Chief tries for a million years to figure out the mysterious Eye of Jupiter, but it is, of course, the supernova itself, which shows up just in time for everybody to get away safe. The Cylon party -- Three, Gaius, and Cavil all of a sudden -- gets control of the Temple for the second before it blows up, but it's a pretty big second: Cavil betrays Three, but Gaius shoots him dead before it gets too serious. But then she dies anyway, from Seeing the Face of God poisoning. When she resurrects, she's told that being a nutsack is not in the specs, and the Three model is boxed altogether. GONE. Making her like the Galileo or Socrates of Cylons, which is fucking rad. While she's getting that done to her, Chief pistol-whips Gaius and takes him back to Galactica for trial. Guess who else is heading there? Oh, Caprica Six. Guess why? Because Helo shot Athena to death after she ordered him to, so that she could resurrect on the baseship and get close to Hera. Roslin actually tries to bitch at him about this, and he almost eats her face off. Poor old Boomer is not feeling motherhood at all, and has managed to let Hera get pretty sick, in addition to making clear she's turned her back on humanity forever; she then threatens to snap the baby's neck, but gets her own neck snapped instead. By Caprica, who like invented neck-snapping in the first place. She helps Athena escape and they return to Galactica together. Hopefully, her friendship with this model Eight will turn out better than last time, when it resulted in humanity being put in a concentration camp. Goodbye, Three. I will always love you. Next week: Plus the Trial of Gaius Baltar begins, along with mysteries like: How come Kara was painting the Eye of Jupiter back in her old Caprican apartment? What will happen to Athena and Caprica? Will Lee and Dualla and Sam and Kara ever figure their stuff out? Will anyone ever care? Want more? The full recap starts right below!
An Eight, I believe and hope it's my Boomer, gives us the previouslies. There was a lot going on, at the end of 3.0, so let's review: Kat died getting us to the Algae Planet, where a Temple was found that seemed to have spiritual significance for both the Cylons and the Colonists. Isn't it weird when you find out the terrorists worship the same God you do? I hate thinking about that stuff, don't you? Lee and Kara were semi-cheating, which is to say they were cheating, but Kara wanted to go All the Way and Lee was all for getting a divorce, but Kara wasn't feeling it. They are both idiots. Then Kara's Raptor went down during the big nuclear standoff between Adama and the Cylons, and Lee and Sam were fighting about how best to deal with this. Boomer went all Mean Girl on Sharon about the baby, and Chief got hit in the head with some childhood religious memories. Meanwhile, Three was convinced her totally scary religious journey was leading her to the Temple and broke up her fake threesome with Caprica and Gaius in order to find out for sure. There are Cylon Raiders headed for the surface, and Adama's got his finger on the button, ready to blow the whole Temple to kingdom come; also the actual sun is about to go nova... And yet it wasn't all that thrilling, from what I remember. That was a long time ago. This episode is way better, and/or happening right now.
In the Galactica CIC, Roslin's watching as Adama talks the crew through the steps of nuclear annihilation. Nobody's really all that excited about blowing up their people and the Temple, but they're doing what they have to, now that Adama's gotten into this cockfight with Three and Cavil. Everybody's waiting for everybody else to blink. On the Basestar, Leoben (and the rest of the ones you always see) is standing with his hand in the puddle of infogoo, advising to pull the Raiders back before Adama blows the Temple. Eight agrees immediately, and even Cavil isn't willing to risk the Temple. Six agrees, because she has that religious weirdness -- and if this is Caprica Six, which I think it is, she has an investment in wrecking Biers's first date with Gaius as well. The Three in the Basestar command doesn't say a thing, just stares and waits for God to fix this.
Also playing chicken are Anders and Apollo, down on the planet. Sam wants to go save Kara himself, but Apollo won't let him. I don't even remember why, and at this point it's not important. I would hate to say that it's because Sam's too important for the Temple defense, with his guerilla skills, but I don't know about that line of reasoning, given what comes next. Anders offers to throttle Lee if anything happens to her, and Lee assures him that if she dies out there, he'll willingly let Sam kill him. Anders postures about how you can't very well follow him around with a gun every second, and that he's still going to save Kara. Lee tells a private to get Dualla on the line. Oh, dear. I see where he's coming from -- that whole military time issue from last episode -- but... there's not a single other person you could give this operation to? In all the Fleet, you gotta send your wife to save your girlfriend? Yep. "Do you have eyeballs on Starbuck's position?" She's hunkered down at an observation post and can't see the Raptor itself, but there's a (huge) plume of smoke coming up from the Raptor a few klicks away. "Can you get to the Raptor?" he asks; she says she doesn't know. (What she means is: "Suck my dick, sir.") "It's pretty far away. There's minimal cover." (What she means is: "Military time or not, do not ask me to do this.") He asks again if it's doable, and she repeats that she doesn't know. What she means is: "Fine, I'll go save your frackin' girlfriend so she can wreck your marriage and/or shoot you some more." And if she doesn't, I'll volunteer.