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Now that's how you do a stand-alone episode that doesn't feel like filler. A run-in with a Raptor puts Colonial One in the shop, leading to yet more flirting between Laura and Bill and also exposing the first thread in a whole messy sweater of civil rights, eminent domain, child labor, Marxist bloviations, and anger management. It is Chief who unravels the sweater, at his wife's behest, but it turns out she's been reading Gaius Baltar's new book, Fomenting Civil Unrest Among Dirty Poor People, which it turns out is easy as pie. Chief finds himself informally returning to his New Caprica role head of the Fleet's labor unions, with the glares of Madame President and William Adama making for some pretty awkward dinner conversation. At one point, for example, Adama goes all Helena Cain and threatens to line Cally up against the bulkhead and shoot her; even worse, he doesn't follow through. He kind of has a point, which is scary but involves how you deal with labor concerns during wartime: tricky, for obvious reasons. Roslin invents both prior restraint and book-burning, so she's still on her awesome trajectory. Chief gets his work-sharing system in place, and is granted official labor leadership by the President, who gets everything she wants without really giving up any ground at all. Meanwhile, Seelix is the victim of a glass-ceiling mentality that says only Capricans and the upper classes are allowed to be Viper pilots, but later on she becomes the newest nugget. She's not as annoying as Kat, but I think she's a worse person, so we'll see how that works out. She's pretty awesome in this episode, anyway. The trial inches forward after a really excellent scene between Tyrol and Gaius in which Baltar admits that his Caprican poshness is just an affectation, and he's really Aerolon, like Boomer was. Then they go to the races, and he embarrasses the Chief with a long, drawn-out story about how his auntie was burglarized while on her death-bed, claiming that "them as pinched it done her in," but Chief's too busy noticing that Gaius is right about everything, again, some more, and leading to the destruction of humanity in a whole new labor union-based way, and also adding some weird Hitler shades to his Jesusness. week, we meet an up-and-coming pilot named Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, who may well have a destiny of some kind. You might remember her from a long time ago on this show. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously, Roslin fully scoffed when Gaius begged for legal representation and due process, but then she kicked off her shoes and took the Admiral's bed for a spin before realizing she totally actually has to give him a lawyer and a trial. Chief Tyrol told somebody that his family was Geminon priesthood, and that he's been serving on "the Battlestar" since he was eighteen. Which goes a whole other place in this episode. Then on New Caprica, he became the president of the union, and gave a speech from Earth history, and there was a strike we never saw. He was totally awesome. Then a while back, Cally got after him about how he still wants to be like they were "before" they were on New Caprica, but I disagreed with her logic: I think he wants everything to be like it was on NC, with I guess the exception of being in a concentration camp run by robots. This is the best previously in a while, because the poundy drums go insane at the exact second that he goes, "What if rough patches are all we have left?"
Now, in the hangar bay, we've got some visual stuff going on that is beautiful and kind of on the nose. The episode is called "Dirty Hands," so get ready for some hands. Chief orders the usual orders while a thousand sets of hands do machinery things. Also, crazy music plays. I just this week finished my essay for a book about Firefly/Serenity, so the music kind of reminded me of that. It's like if you...oh, shit. I was going to say, "it's like if you took the music from 'Pegasus' and turned it sideways,' but that's not really a funny joke this week, and it occurs to me that that is the entire point for this weird music. This episode really got to me; I don't know if it's because I haven't slept in two weeks or what, but I was crying like the entire time. I think there are lots of reasons. Here's one more:
"I only knew Admiral Cain for a short time, so what I have to say about her will be short. She faced things. She looked them right in the eye and she didn't flinch. That's something that we do a lot around here. We second-guess. We worry. When I think about what she went through after the attack -- all alone, one ship, no help, no hope -- she didn't give up. She didn't worry. She didn't second-guess. She acted. She did what she thought needed to be done, and the Pegasus survived. Might be hard to admit, or hard to hear, but I think that we were safer with her than we are without."
She knew. All that time, all those choices, all that long ago: she knew. Remember Pegasus, I kept saying, after the Circle: Remember Pegasus. Even when we met her, even when Kara said her eulogy, I wondered how you live with that in your history, in the walls; how do you go on living where that can't happen, when you've seen for yourself it can? How do you pretend it never happened when it's all over you? How do you keep your hands getting dirty when your hands are all over it? There's lots of yelling, in the bay. Lots of hands, and crazy music, and the tylium floods down, through and into wherever it goes. Figurski wonders: weren't there some maintenance jobs they were subbing out to the civvies in Dogsville? Chief shakes his head: he doesn't know enough of them. Galen means physician. He's the Cottle for the ship, for the Vipers and the Raptors; it's not only the color of his collar that made him perfect for the union on New Caprica. Pollux asks him if she's ever getting rack time; he blows her off in that Helo-bureaucratic way. Everybody else (Figurski) makes fun of her for the ringing in her ears, but it's not funny. Some cute dude says a bunch of stuff to some Raptor pilot about how this and that, and she takes off in her tank, and Seelix comes into the bay, bearing laundry. It took these people two years to do their laundry, but now? Every week with the laundry.
Seelix yells at the hands on deck to grab their crap before she chucks it in the "cycler," so apparently...one thing I really like about this episode is how it steps into the terrain of science fiction in ways that don't offend me, if you know what I mean. The whole "inheritance of occupation" issue is so totally Greg Bear, who is in turn so totally my boyfriend; the mention of how they get rid of crap in the cycler, I like that. It's not that I hate science fiction so much as I hate the ease with which you can reach for its tropes, if necessary. Speaking in the language of sci-fi is fine, as long as it's not the emotional language of sci-fi, which is four words long at best.
Let's do the whole "who wrote what" thing again, since I'm never saying aloud the name of the person who wrote the one two episodes from now. This episode is brought to you by the combined powers of Anne Cofell-Saunders, my favorite writer on this show, and Jane Espenson, one of my favorite human beings. Jane wrote the Kat episode, as well as about a million episodes of every other show you love, and I found out today that I'm allowed to tell you that she's coming on staff for sure, as of this week I guess. So that's brilliant! Anne wrote "Pegasus," "Sacrifice," "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II", and "Torn", and is credited on story for "Resurrection Ship, Part I". She loves Asimov, Herbert and Card; so do I, so should this show. My favorite thing she's said is how she taught in Japan, and she approaches Laura that way, as a schoolteacher first and foremost: you have to set boundaries. The whole "You have to kill Cain, stupid" approach, or like I was saying about the old people romance stuff: eventually it's time to get real. It gets a workout this episode, in some awesome ways and some less awesome ways, and some pretty scary ways too. Anyway, I wanted to mention that in case you thought Roslin was not being as scary as she seemed: this is the woman who created Admiral Helena Cain. Roslin's being twice as fucking scary as you think, and I'm here to tell you why.
Figurski asks about his "undies," which made me cliché a little in my mouth, and Seelix does what I'm counting as the third brilliant elision of "frack" so that it sounds mighty like what it means. (The first one was I think Gaeta, and the second one was Gaius when Roslin was about to airlock him a couple weeks ago. I think it should just be like a Rae Dawn Chong Challenge and every script should have at least one mumbled "frack" in it that they can totally just say "fuck" and then point to the script: "Says right here: 'frack'!" That's adorable.) I really like the actress that plays Seelix, but the Cavil thing is...not something I'm going to bore you with right now, because this episode is more about how she's the new Kat and less about how she's the new Cally. Or the old one, because Cally this week is totally lovable and wonderful, weirdly. Figurski asks if they "let officers" talk like that: "Gonna have to change your ways when you get them wings." Again, I'm not saying anything, except for how I agreed with Kara at the time that putting little Decepticon head Raider markers on your fuselage is tacky, and I know that Seelix would love it. But not today: "I'm not getting wings. They rejected my application for flight training... turns out I'm in a critical position, and my leaving would cause 'severe mission degradation'." Cally, sweetly and looking pretty lovely, takes a moment to say, "That sucks." Pollux, who is I guess the new Seelix, cracks that it's not the critical position thing -- Seelix rocked her written and the interview went well -- so much as "they just don't want knuckledraggers stinking up the Pilots' ready room." Seelix's face is sad; everybody laughs. Chief steps in and shuts them up.
Privately, he tells her he's sorry she got bounced from flight training, and agrees with his wife that it sucks. "Truth is, we need you down here. You're the best avionics specialist we've got." Seelix is like, "This lemonade is delicious!" Figurski steps in all, "Plus she can fold a man's undies," and she totally jumps his ass, which takes me about 40% of the way to being where I need to be in order to care about Seelix, because it's awesome, and I hate Figurski both categorically and in particular right now. Chief peels her off his stupid ass and threatens to "pop [him] in the mouth [him]self," which I would dearly love to see, and sends everybody back to work before hauling Seelix back. I liked Kat, and I loved Kat's episode, and it seems weird to be setting Seelix up in the same exact thing Kat spent the last season going through, when Seelix has all this really intense and horrible backstory that we're ignoring, but I trust the process, I suppose. Her voice is mellifluous, so that's one thing that she has on poor Kat. "You do important work down here. Just as important as sitting in a cockpit," Chief Chiefs, and she tries to be nice about it: "Thanks, Chief. I gotta deliver some more important laundry." She's not even really scoring a point, just kind of bummed. (I invite you to imagine how Cally would act in this situation, for example.) She grabs her laundry and her clipboard and takes off; Chief feels bad and looks delicious and is thinky about everything.
Out in space, Racetrack is away and calling readings back to Galactica when she hears a bang, and she and Skulls both react. Things start to get effed up, and their voices climb similar ladders as they call out their exposition home. There's a fire in engine two, and they're drifting and about to blow.
It's calm on Colonial One : Tory putters around, Roslin writes a list of inalienable rights and checks off the ones she's aliened, and thinks about what she has to wear to get Bill to notice her, and what Sagittaron five-year-old she can force into tailoring it.
Out the window, Racetrack's Raptor drifts toward them, faster and faster as she gets closer. "Eject! Eject!" screams Racetrack, among a lot of other things, and I assume they do so. Her Raptor hurtles closer and closer to Laura's beautiful face.
It's calm on Colonial One : Laura looks out window, into the black. Credits.
41,400 souls in the Fleet, meaning that in addition to being stupid and sucky, Dr. Robert was also incredibly bad at being a serial killer. Bill moves Laura back into a temporary living space that's different from her usual temporary office, and tells her how lucky she was: "A dozen injuries, no fatalities." Laura's sweet and funny as she full-body shudders: "You should've seen Tory's shoulder; I had to help Cottle put it back in alignment. Ugh!" She apologizes to Bill for taking up space while they repair Colonial One , and he just smiles. "Well, if the quarters become cramped, you're always welcome in one of my beds..." Is he a virgin? What's the deal with my man Adama? They both jerk to a halt at this obvious entendre and lock eyes, smiling sexily. "...In a manner of speaking." (Okay, but how hot would it be if a guy acted like this on purpose? Oh my God it would drive you nuts. I hope he's totally doing it on purpose.) She laughs and fluffs her hair and caresses her herself and comes way closer and puts on a concerned face. "Do you have any better idea what happened to your Raptor?" These sexual tension/change-the-subject scenes are so awesome, because they're like 10% funny, 60% sexy, and the other 150% is this weird thing where it's like they've had sex and just forgot, or like you've had sex with one or the both of them, and you just want to scream at them about how easy it actually is so stop dog-paddling and take off the training wheels and whatever metaphor. Convert to representative government. Of your junk.
Of course, Bill's loving this step away from sex: "We're still investigating the situation, but it seems that the tylium was seriously contaminated with impurities. Most likely, it's a problem with the refining process." I'll say. Man! Roslin rolls her eyes and asks what the hell's going on at the tylium factory. "That refinery used to be the most reliable ship in the Fleet -- now every day, I start with a stack of messages from that Chief ... What is his name?" (Xeno Fenner, of course, just like whatever sci-fi name that crazy conspiracy lady was named in "Sacrifice.") Roslin snorts about Fenner: "Conditions, deliveries, spare parts, and compensation, if you can believe that. We're on the run for our lives, and the guy wants to talk about overtime bonuses." She takes a sip of wine and eats some delicious grapes and grunts from her shiatsu massage. Adama worries about how they've been waiting two weeks for Fenner to get his act together, and then tosses her the bouquet about how if they're waiting on labor, how the hell are they ever going to get to Earth? Roslin grins and whispers. "Is that a hint of hope I hear? Has the skeptic suddenly decided that we're on the road to Earth after all?" Bill pulls that thing he does, where he solves the equation faster than you noticed the question being asked: "Have I ever doubted it?" Um, since you made it up the first time we ever saw you, I guess not. That's adorable. Of course he believes in Earth. He only, what, supported Tigh's coup and arrest of Roslin based on the fact that he knew he was lying. Even Roslin is like, "Cute for sure, but seriously? I said I'd build a cabin, not rewrite history. We can totally knock boots without you lying about the lying lie of Earth. I've dealt with it." Not to mention how they both gave in to the fakeness of Earth when they gave the election to Baltar based on his lying about the lying about the lie of Earth, and ended up in a concentration camp. I'd switch sides too!
Fenner meets with the Admiral and the President, bringing up how there are people in the refinery that have been working 18-hour shifts for the past six months, or longer. Adama's like, "Yeah, but if the Cylons show up, can we jump? Maybe once." Roslin hmms and nods. "That's a margin that's much too narrow for me. How about for you and your men? You have a problem: fix it." What I like is that he's laying out the whole unanswerable question of the episode up front: war demands sacrifice, but sacrifice isn't a bottomless well. It's not just pilots that die, or get tired or crazy; the one advantage the Cylons have always had is that they don't die. This is the flip side of that: how do you run just as fast and far as an immortal enemy, when you fall down sometimes? It's terrible to contemplate. This whole 3.5, and 2.5, have avoided asking the questions like this, because you can't solve them narratively, which is what writers like to do. This episode is about what it's like to be fucked, independent of the bad guys, which frankly the whole demi-season should always be about, instead of creating problems that are either negligible (2.5) or nonsensical (3.5, "Black Market") -- everybody in the episode has both a stake and a valuable viewpoint, and all of them are right, and all of them are wrong, and we're fucked, and that's so much more satisfying than a bunch of episodes where either the problem is made up and stupid, or people act out of character in order to make it easier, or whatever it is. Sudden kids in sex danger or sudden racist serial killers are easy to close the loop on: this story lets itself breathe, and I can think of about ten episodes in the last two seasons that could have used being less obvious. This story doesn't click closed like a box, and that makes it better. It's like during the Occupation: whoever's talking, they're right, because everybody's right, and not knowing that is how you end up at war.
"Just get the gas flowing, and then we'll talk. I promise you that," says Laura, just like always. Always tomorrow. Fenner points this out, and goes... I'd say a tad farther than is really smart: "You know, it's funny that when the gas flows, my phone calls don't get returned, but the minute there's a glitch in the fuel supply, I've got face time with the President and the Admiral? Hmm. Maybe we should just start having more glitches." The actor that plays Fenner, in addition to being hot, is also canny in letting you in on all fifteen levels of you know-I know-you know-that I know going on here. Roslin asks if he's threatening them, which is in itself a threat. "It's like the book says: 'If you hear the people, you'll never have to fear the people.'" Laura Roslin's voice goes to a place that is deathly terrifying: "Did you say the book?" He nods; he knows that she knows that he knows what book she knows he's talking about. She goes hard. "Okay, guards? Arrest him for extortion and interrupting vital services during a time of war. Go ahead, take him away, that's it, go. Out of here. Gone." The Marines shuffle him off and Bill asks what the hell just happened. "He was quoting from Baltar's book." She spits it out. I guess my whole assumption that she was somewhat chilled out after freaking out during his MKUltra trial didn't do a thing for her hatred of him. It's so weird to see her still hating him so much, after all that time wishing she'd kill him. Now I'm just scared she will. "He's having it reprinted and passed out among the Fleet." The book he wrote is called My Triumphs, My Mistakes, she spits, and notes how she's "thinking of having a good, old-fashioned book-burning." And if that word scares you, it should: part of speaking truth to power is knowing that if there's nothing to hide, they won't.
Back home, Cally tuts Chief about how he's not allowed his disgusting algae meatloaf, because he's on a date, and when he complains about how today's his cheat day, she just smiles. "The last three days have been your cheat day." He didn't realize. He acts cute with Nicky and notes that she's moving around, proving the bends wrong, and she says she's wigging about Seelix's whole thing. "They should have just told her right off the bat what the Fleet priorities are, should have said that they needed knuckledraggers more than they need pilots." Cally shakes her head, of course, because God forbid reality get in the way of your dreams or your unearned successes. If there's one thing American Idol has permanently ruined for me, it's being sympathetic to people bitching about the way things are. I mean, I appreciate Cally in this episode and I don't have a problem with what she's saying, because somebody has to say it and she's like perfect for this role, but in addition to my general issue with Cally, I have a problem with anybody who says this stuff while thinking it matters. Yeah, it sucks; saying that doesn't change it. Somebody particularly martyriffic and self-obsessed might become a fulcrum for change, but that's not you, and that's not what this is about. This is about freshman year and learning about the evils of capitalism, and my assumption is that we're all older than that, so read your Orwell and don't email me. If you think that's what's going on here, they got you. It's the abortion fight all over again; it's gay marriage 2.0.
"It isn't about Fleet priorities. We're not part of the ruling class, so we're stuck doing the dirty work." Chief's like, "Bwuh?" Oh, just something she read. By Gaius Baltar. Well, why didn't you say so? Baltar's always been proficient with realities and not superhero fantasies where he's the star and hero of absolutely everybody, I would definitely listen to him. Chief scoffs, and Cally admits that it was a hard sell, but: "Do you ever wonder why all the pilots and the officers come from the rich Colonies, like Caprica, or Virgon, or Tauron, while all the knuckledraggers come from the poor Colonies like Aerelon and Sagittaron? And Geminon?" Chief blows this off as just another rough patch, just "trash talk on the deck," and she challenges him to name an officer left on the Fleet that comes from a poor Colony. He thinks a bit, and of course names Dee, who's the only Sagittaron any of us would deign to know personally. Her triumph is ugly in a particularly Cally way: "Case in point! How did she get promoted? She married an officer...from Caprica!" Um, you just indicted your trashy self from about nine different angles, Little Miss "Who Could Marry A Man Who Doesn't Love Her," but whatever, I actually really like her in this episode. ["Oh, clearly. Hee." -- Joe R]
The phone rings, thank Gods, and Adama's on the line: "Chief, the foreman of the fuel refinery has just been arrested." Xeno Fenner. Cally immediately asks what happens to him; Chief of course ignores her entirely. Chief wonders -- given that Fenner is a good guy and was in the union on NC -- what he did. "Pissed off the President," Adama admits. "But the bigger problem right now is the refining operation." He orders Chief to get over there immediately with a team, and Chief hangs up and starts lacing his boots. Cally asks about Fenner: "He pissed off the President," Chief deadpans, and even though he's not kidding and doesn't know it, he's still funny. Luckily Cally's always ready for whatever most victimizes everybody: "What, you can get arrested for that now?" They wonder if Adama was kidding, and Cally asks if Chief ever thinks about the union any more. "New Caprica's gone, but the people in the union are still here. Only difference is, now they don't have anyone to stand up for them." Welcome to this entire episode, as narrated by Cally Tyrol. Chief's just like, "I gotta go."
Meanwhile, Roslin's perpetrating. Marines stab Gaius's mattress and rip it from step to stern, as he leans against the wall, bitching. "I do hope you're enjoying yourselves. It's not enough you have to interrupt my sleep and put filth in my food, now you have to destroy my stuff as well..." Mid-whine, and it's not like he doesn't have a point, Roslin steps into the anteroom. "Hello, doctor. Why don't you do yourself a favor? Hand over the pages and stop all this nonsense." He tells her he doesn't know what she's talking about; her response: "Turn him around." (Remember Pegasus!) They rip open his pillow and Roslin keeps talking, about the book. "So you've read it? The people are reading it and now you're sorry." Every conversation between them is like the first conversation between them. Dude, she's never going to be sorry. She's never going to be in your story where you're the good guy. Her quote is too high for that movie. Roslin jokingly, Cavilly, tells him they've been intercepting his pages every time he passed them to his violently hot lawyer, and that she's the only person who's read them. "...And I am dying to see how it ends." Chilling, just as she intended. I don't like this flavor of Laura, even though she's still the only person that always makes complete sense, but I really don't like how she's making me side with Gaius Frackin' Baltar. That's just so wrong. She makes fun of him for casting himself as "man of the people, the son of a farmer, a revolutionary? Oh, please." She actually says that, and it's actually awful. He tells her that his new plan is to strike a chord with the common man, which is funny because he totally had that, by virtue of being a sexy smart celebrity, until he put everybody in concentration camps. Ooops! Roslin threatens him with a cavity search, and he looks down, so she tells the "gentlemen" Marines to proceed. They strip him to his undershirt, and again: this is not the time to be finding Gaius Baltar attractive for the first time ever. Of all times. That's like three "Our Fathers" and a "Free Mumia."
Laura actually smiles as his degradation continues: chilling. There's a "funny" little Gaeta moment that's really heavily encoded where the Marine's hands searching his pants become Chip Six's hands, gently caressing. I don't have the time or the degree to explain that to you in all its dimensions, but being strip-searched by sexy buff Marines in front of Laura Roslin, and all of a sudden invisible and possibly not-real girlfriend is raising the dead? I don't know how to deal with all those issues at once, at least not since that one guy I dated in college. Life is short. "Don't bend to her, Gaius. Show her that she can't break you. Keep your dignity." He caresses her hands, which don't exist, bemidst the dude shaking him down...and pulls the pages out of his undies, as Figurski would say. As cocky as you can be with a George Constanza boner mid-Miranda, he flourishes them: "Perhaps you'll consider writing a blurb for the back cover." She gestures to the Marine to take the crotchy pages, and thanks him curtly, leaving. Left alone, Gaius leans against the wall sadly, and Six appears again. "It's all right, Gaius. Everything'll be okay." It will. I know it will. She leans her head against the wall, near his; he's alone.
Chief and Seelix take a shuttle to the refinery, where he meets up with Cabott, a worker he knows from some other time. They hail-fellow for awhile and then head around the factory for a tour. Cabott admits that Chief -- who's not terribly happy to hear it, right now -- is an enduring hero of the blue collar. The Man They Call Chief, if you will. Chief doesn't know how to deal with that, because his hands haven't been this dirty since the apocalypse. Not really. Chief looks down at the tylium stores and asks how many jumps are left: "We'd be lucky if we get out of the system," Cabott laughs. Chief makes a scared face, but asks for the rest of the tour. The mining operations are...if you asked my friends, people who know me, what my least favorite thing in the universe is, they would unequivocally say, "Any TV show or movie or story or anecdote about poor people. Especially in factories. Especially politically active." Not pretty, but there it is. Those movies piss me off. And yet. These people are working, grimy and tired-looking; there are sparks near dirty hands, movement along the line, young men and women, the very old, people soldering. It's a big operation. Cabott laughs that Chief should see it when it's "up and running": "Loud as an A-bomb, just about as safe." Nice.
Cabott, as they continue the tour, tries to explain conditions, how they really need the downtime. How time it might not just be a Raptor. "This ship...it really is a big bomb, waitin' to go up." Chief's still in his sympathetic-but-unradicalized bureaucratic phase, and tells the guy to just fucking fix it. A young kid named Milo (12, Some Poor Colony) approaches, telling him it won't matter. Chief wigs about the child's age, and Cabott kind of stutters about what a great "grease jockey" they've got. (Which exact thing Chief said to Seelix this week and Cally last week, obviously, and I don't see anything less humane about child labor than putting those two MHMR cases to work, but then they're both much awesome this episode, so: Milo.) Milo won't tell Chief why it "won't work," and Chief starts to figure out what's going wrong, here, which is that the obvious thing that's happening is actually happening: random seals and stuff are missing. Milo's too tired to be gleeful as he smears it in the Chief's face: "Guess they got lost, huh?" Chief gets scared, and not in a middle-management way; in the Chief way. "Guys, you can't be fracking around with this stuff. The admiral won't stand for..." Milo notes that the Admiral can kiss his ass, and Cabott steps back in. "Come on, Chief. You know what this is about. I guess when working conditions improve, and they let Xeno out of jail, we'll be able to find those seals." Until then, of course, they just happen to be looking at a total tylium shortage, and the Fleet is going nowhere. Xeno's Paradox, yeah? Unanswerable questions, nothing moving forward.
They search the ship, as Chief explains to the Admiral, but the seals are still missing. Adama correctly calls this sabotage and wants to lock them up, but Chief thinks their concerns are legitimate. Which they would be, if this wasn't a war for all humanity; for humanity, which is still made of people. Impossible. "They could have tried something to have me injured, they could have contaminated the fuel on purpose and left all of our ships dead in the air..." Roslin wows at that one. "All they did do was buy themselves some time. Look, the machinery does need overhauling." He points out that quality control is failing not entirely out of malice, that most of the people on the refinery ship have been working since the original apocalypse, that it's tantamount to slave labor. Adama hefts his (literal, this time) glass of wine and tells him not to be absurd. "The men and women aboard that ship are stuck there. They can't leave, they can't transfer. They have no control over their lives." He's right. "And they work hard, we know that," says Laura. She's right too: "Do they think they're having a picnic at the algae processing plant? Or munitions, or waste-processing? The Fleet is filled with ships with people working under horrific conditions, and nobody's having a good time." Whoever's talking, they're right. But Laura -- in this scene mostly -- is more right. Chief suggests that they release Xeno and start talking about working and living conditions, and hopefully they'll return the seals and get some tylium happening. He's right. Laura's right too: "Extortion is not an acceptable method of protest. What are the names of the leaders?" Adama looks over at her, because she's somehow both the hardass and the guardian of humanity this week, while behaving more ickily than ever; Chief is sad. "...Just Cabott." Roslin and Adama agree to toss him in the brig, and Chief protests, and Laura cuts him off with that way she has: "-- Chief. Uh-uh. We're done."
Chief tries to sleep, but eventually gets up to check on the now two labor people he's gotten put in jail. Cally stares into space and acts "sleepy" some more. In the brig, Cabott is...really not doing well. Fenner says a soft hello to Chief, begging him to get Cabott out of there. His hands are raw and bloody, blood everywhere, his dirty hands covered in blood; he's murmuring, mumbling, crying, screaming. It's awful. Fenner explains that he woke up in the middle of the night to find Cabott scratching, at the walls. Scratching at them until he bled. Like Ellen, like Kara, like Sharon. He's still screaming: "Say it doesn't matter, say it doesn't matter..." Xeno Fenner explains that he was in detention on NC. "You remember. He came out squirrelly, and this not helping. Come on. You gotta get him outta here." Cabott continues to cry, and bleed, and scratch. The Cylons didn't really know what they were doing when they put us in cages; they thought they were doing their best, that they were doing the right thing. And now Laura's doing what she has to, and Bill's doing what he has to...but Cabott's hands are still covered in blood. You tell me.
Chief asks Fenner where the seals are, and Fenner's face falls, like Cally's the day she realized Boomer couldn't do anything for her: "Oh, you son of a bitch." Locked up tight. Chief begs for Fenner's help, Fenner begs for the Chief's help. They're both right. They're both wrong. Chief ignores Fenner and starts to scream at Cabott begging him to listen, begging him to tell him where the seals are. That's all it would take, and none of them can break the deadlock. "It doesn't matter, say it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter..." Fenner screams, Chief screams, Cabott bleeds. Fenner calls Chief "Galen," begging over Chief's shouts, over Cabott's. Fenner begs Chief to just look at him: at the extremity he was edging toward, before the Occupation, before the Second Exodus, before detention, and where he is now. Where Gaius says they all are. "It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter!" Cabott screams; Fenner finally -- compassion, finally -- gives in. "They're in the central stern air vent," he shouts, and Chief finally asks a Marine to confirm their release with Madame President. Fenner paces. Cabott screams; his hands bleed.
Chief's hands are dirty again, replacing the seals in the refinery. Milo begs to throw the switch, and when Chief asks how old he is, he doesn't even blink: he's twelve. "I can run every machine we've got, the only thing I haven't done is turn the whole thing on." Chief gives him the con and Milo pushes the lever, the alarms go nuts, everybody stares, the tylium keeps rolling. Chief looks at them, and thinks about how young they are; how young Milo is.
"There are kids down there, Madame President." Roslin's willful: "There's children on every ship in the Fleet," she says, ignoring the spirit for the letter. He presses. "The children work in the refinery. They're 12, 15 years old..." She fights him again: "There have been families aboard the refinery ever since its beginning, and others were picked up after the Cylons attacked the Colonies." Ever since, the parents have been passing their knowledge on to their children, to keep the Fleet moving, to get everybody onboard working. "Perfectly normal," she says, and in that context it is. "It is not ideal. I know that," she spits. "But there is nothing ideal about this Fleet." He points out how the jobs are being inherited, which is a valid science fiction trope. But. But, add that to the emerging aristocracy issue Cally sees happening for some reason named Baltar, and the more legitimate question which is suddenly central to the episode: what if there's no Earth? What if we're not storing up riches in Heaven? What if there's no Gods, and Earth is a lie after all? What then? This is why Communists are atheists: what if this is all there is? What if we keep running, forever? The lines we draw in the salt now, the systems we put in place now, aren't just preserving the Colonies as they are, they're creating the Colonies as they will be. The responsibility isn't just to preserving democracy and the spirit of the Colonies while in a time of war, but making allowances for what happens if this never ends. If all we have left are rough spots, what then?
I've never wanted Earth to be a lie so bad in my whole life. "What if it's ten years? So I train my son to be a deckhand because that's what I am, and that's all he can ever be? Is that the future we want?" She pauses, and either accepts the truth of it or ignores it entirely, depending on how she's feeling about the Earth issue today. Her smile is sad, and accepting, and loving, and strong. "That's a really good point. Tory? I want you to make a list of everyone in the Fleet who has a work history appropriate to the refinery. Factory workers, mechanics, whatever you think. Give it to the Chief. And I want you to hold a public lottery, and we will take people from other vessels, and we will put them on shifts in the refinery. How's that, Chief?" She's getting too good at this. He's right, but she can still swallow his truth inside her own: move resources around to solve the problem. Except they're not "resources," they're people, and we're back where we started, and Chief thinks like a mechanic so he doesn't catch it either. I don't think she's doing evil yet, but I do think she's dicking with him because of how forests work: they're made of trees. He leaves and they thank each other; when he leaves she goes steely. Telling them they have choices is the same thing as giving them choices, isn't it? When even she can tell he's got a point, why not give in -- in precisely the way where you lose nothing? But the tylium keeps rolling.
Chief and Figurski deal with the conscripts, including an allotment from Dogsville: "Get these people on these ships before they know where they're going," he says, scarily, and Figurski laughs. A kid, twenty or so, named Danny Noon, approaches. He's played by the most amazing young actor; I can't find out his name, but I know I've seen him before, and it kills me that I can't figure it out. He's so great. Not only is his technical acting, the way he says words, awesome, but he also creates a pretty hard-hitting character. It's funny to have somebody so obviously red-shirted introduced so late in the episode, but man does he make the best of it. He makes the episode, to be honest: I cried when Laura was stripping Gaius, because apparently that's what I do this season, but I didn't really freak out until Danny showed up. That can't all be my neurosis of people not recognizing how special I am, can it? The kid's actually fantastic? I can't believe his name isn't anywhere, he just became my favorite actor. Way to go, Hey It's That Kid! You nearly killed me!
So Danny comes running up begging for a second of Chief's time: "Excuse me, sir? Hi, um, I don't really know who I'm supposed to talk to about this, but I don't really think I'm what you guys are looking for. I don't really have the skills?" He's like every memory you have of being forced to go to Daru Mozu Summer Camp, all at once. Figurski checks his clipboard: "Says you're a farmer." Chief's like, "Exactly what we need," and Danny nods. "No, I don't, not really. See, I worked on a farm for a summer, because I was saving up to go to college. Architecture. But then the Cylons attacked, and now ... I'm a farmer? How is that fair? How is that in any way fair?" The dignity with which he says this last line... Sesha Abinell got to me, but this kid broke my heart. Just broke me, I'm serious. Chief motions Figurski over and they confab: "We make an exception for this guy, there's gonna be fifteen more right behind him." Chief points out how he's just a kid, but Figurski's not feeling him. Remember Pegasus. "Fine," Chief says. "Put him in the ship. Uh, look... this is just a temporary thing, okay?" Danny doesn't even hear him anymore. As the Marines drag him away, and Chief promises it's not permanent, Danny cries: "Uh, wait. Hold on. I am not a farmer. No, wait, can you just check my record? I...no, no, excuse me. Who am I supposed to talk to about this?" Imagine what it was like on New Caprica, when the civilian police came to your door; when the Centurions came bop-bop-boppin' up that bunny trail. "Is there somebody I'm supposed to talk to about this?" But there's nobody. "You don't understand. I'm not a farmer! Stop it! I'm not a farmer!" And then Danny Noon is gone, to the Daru Mozu. How is that in any way fair? How do you answer these questions?
You don't. You do what you can. They take him away; Chief thinks about little Galen, little Nicky. He almost cries. His eyes, as he's fleeing the scene slowly, fall upon a book. Left on a stack of crates, photocopied: My Triumphs, My Mistakes, by Gaius Baltar. He opens it to a useful chapter: "The Emerging Aristocracy And The Emerging Underclass," and the text therein: "I wash my hands of the pho[ny] Democratic system; I will never let myself be distracted by the plac[ations] of the elite..." Something about the falsehood of the Quorum and the various ministries; Chief makes the angry face and heads to the brig.
The last time they really spoke, disregarding the whole Resistance where the whole point was that they never saw each other, Gaius was torturing Chief -- maybe in this very room -- so that he'd answer the question nobody should have to ask. Now, Chief's powerless and Gaius is smoking one of his cigarettes. If Chief is the Body to Gaeta's Neural System, Galactica-wise, he can't have ever respected him that much. Gaius talked Chief's girlfriend into suicide and put his wife in front of a firing line; now he's smoking a Swisher. "Your book. Fact or fiction?" Oh, Chief. I wish you knew the list of Roslin's lies. "She told me it hadn't gone out," Gaius purrs. "So, what do you make of it?" (Chief was only the head of the anti-Gaius contingent, both publicly -- in the union -- and secretly -- the Resistance. He has no reason not to fuck with him, frankly.) Chief says it's a pile of crap, but Gaius isn't so sure: "Obviously my analysis of a bifurcated society scares you, but everything in my book happens to be true." Just like the birth rate, just like the Eye of Jupiter. He always knows this stuff ahead of time. He's totally like Hannibal and Clarice in one, especially now, especially in a second. Chief's not buying that, per the book, Gaius was originally a farmboy from Aerolon. "Yes...as a matter of fact, I was born and raised on a dairy outside a town called Cuffle's Breath Wash [?] on Aerelon." Man, does Gaius make sense. I buy that entirely. Poor old idiot. Chief asks why it's so hard to picture him milking cows and shoveling manure, and though Gaius's explanation -- "lack of imagination?" -- is both true and full of panache, Chief's is equally valid: "Or maybe that your little tale is manure." Gaius blows him off. It's funny, you know. Adama, and at least two episodes of this show, are convinced that if Chief's going to hate anybody, it should rightly be Adama. And here he is, in a position actually literally opposite Adama's via Roslin's, and all the hate for NC is pointed right at my Gaius. It's getting lame, pointing out the freaky Baltar love, but come on: Chief and Gaius in a scene, and I'm on the fuckface's side? And Chief's about to be? This show is awesome. I wish Tigh would come and write a poem.
Chief stumbles over his declaration that he's "known people from Aerelon"; I have no doubt that he's right, but he's not thinking about people from Aerelon proper, he's thinking about people who were very good at being from Aerelon, which is different. Although I don't blame him: the only reason I remember Boomer was fake-Aerolon is because she was my favorite character and I'm an Aries, so we are like soulmates. "I don't sound like I'm from Aerelon?" No, he doesn't. Mostly because he's the only British person on the cast, I suppose, so this whole conversation makes not a shitload of sense. On the other hand, it's awesome for many reasons. Number one is that if you buy it, and you should, Gaius is even more of a Holly Golightly than you could have previously thought; secondly, Gaius is a particular kind of awesome that I am vulnerable to, being from West Texas and sounding like I'm from Sacramento (though you get a pass on the accent when you're outrageously gay, because apparently it overrides the other accents, or so I'm told by people with good intentions); thirdly, all that bitching about Callis's acting from the MKUltra episode is no longer an issue, because he does more with this short speech than he's been allowed to do in most episodes heretofore, and I always thought it was the script's fault anyway; and penultimately, because what few shots this show lacks being about hands, it more than makes up for by focusing on Gaius's mouth here, which gives the whole scene a shivery kind of magical prescience or whatever that's mesmerizing and terrifying for an unknown reason. Finally, and meta: since the last episode was about Espenson's food obsession, it's only fair that this one get a little linguistics porn in.
"Well, you know, I take that as a particular compliment. I don't know about you, but I've always found the Aerelon dialect to be particularly hard on the ears. Something about the way the consonants scrape the back of the throat. Of course, I should know an awful lot about my native tongue, I spent hours on end trying to overcome it. Do you have any idea how hard it is for a ten-year-old boy to change the way he speaks, to unlearn everything he ever learned? So that one day, there might be the small hope that he might pass as not coming from Aerelon? Maybe, I don't know...Caprica. Caprican. Oh, to be Caprican: seat of politics, culture, art, science...learning. And what was Aerelon? Just a drab, ugly rock condemned to be the food basket for the Twelve Worlds. And that's how we were: treated like servants, like laborers, like the working class. [Galen Tyrol, CPO, the Chief, Geminese; his dirty hands.] You know, you'd have fitted right in there, Chief: Lots of men who liked to work with their hands, and, uh, grab a pint down at the pub, and finish off the evening with a good old-fashioned fight. Oh yes. I left Aerelon after my eighteenth birthday. I turned my back on my family, on my heritage, all of them. Course, it doesn't matter, that. They're all dead now."
Chief begs: "You do realize that none of that exists here?" and Gaius laughs. "Coming from the mouth of a mechanic." Chief insists: "We've kept democracy. We have government, we have rights, we have elections..." Heh. Okay, even I would have laughed there. Everybody's so serious on this show all the time! "Well, then you should feel perfectly happy, shouldn't you? Perfectly at ease. Go home. Leave me in peace. After all, that's what the aristocracy wants. It wants the working class to feel looked after, while they scrabble around for scraps from the master's table." Chief walks away. He's right. They're both right. What do you do? "Here's a question I ask at the end of my book; I'll save you the trouble of reading it: Do you honestly believe that the fleet will ever be commanded by somebody whose last name is not Adama? There it is, Chief. One set of rules for the aristocracy, and one set of rules for the rest of us." Code-switching like a motherfucker, going back and forth from the Aerelon accent to his normal one, faster than you can hear almost: what's real? Who's on top? Who's on the bottom? Which is Gaius Baltar? Which is Laura Roslin, or Bill Adama? Which is the Chief? Which is you? Where do you fall? When do you fall? When does it start? What does it take?
Chief takes off. And the look in Gaius's eyes...it's holy. It's rage. There's something new, poking through. Think about Gaius, about what it took to become Gaius Baltar. Superstar, traitor, celebrity scientist. The kind of man Kara Thrace would fuck, or Felix Gaeta, just because of who he was. Think about Gaius Golightly, fucking Gina on a bed of death, knowing what she was, knowing he was about to lock the elections, about to settle a new planet for all mankind. Think about how hard he tried to prove himself, as Vice President, as President, and how burned he got, over and over and over. How every single person he asked for that one simple thing let him down: Laura, Kara, Caprica, Three. The thing that makes you awesome is the thing that makes you suck, and vice versa. The worse he gets the worse I feel for him: I've wanted to do a lot of things to Gaius Baltar, but I've never wanted to give him a hug before.
The PA's alive with the sounds of working, on Daru Mozu, on Galactica, cleanup crews working, Chief's on Daru talking to Fenner, all about the lottery and how it's going. "They're skittish, but they'll catch on." He points toward a point on the line where there was trouble before: "All kinds of gear slippage, temperature variation...we didn't know the dross wasn't getting burned off." (I've been telling you that since "The Passage"!) Chief checks it out; Fenner points out half a dozen other places on the line that could still fuck up, so of course they do. The belt -- it's weirdly horrible, sickening after all this time with the hands and the factory, like something biological -- suddenly begins to jump and buck, tylium flying all over. It's gross; Chief yells to hit the switch, but his hands aren't dirty enough: "No, no, no, not when it's jammed. The whole system will seize up," shouts Fenner. And since it's fuel stuff, if the line stops the ore still in the chamber will superheat and blow everybody to hell. The time is now.
Chief locates the area, and sticks his hands in the machine. Are they dirty enough? He's had too many algae meatloafs, I guess, because he can't fit in. And who should show up just in time, of course, but Danny Noon. Whose hands were meant for architecture. Whose beautiful hands were meant to create beauty, places for living, places where space speaks, where living and the line are in accordance. To work in math and lines so clear they're like looking through glass. To build cabins.
Danny sticks his hand in the machine, everybody yells at everybody else, it's really super intense, but at least Chief's not in danger. Hey, once they took Saul's eye, who knows? Not us, until they said Danny's name out loud -- that's how you know they're fracked -- and put him here, now, to do this. Everybody -- Chief, Fenner -- talks Danny through it, whatever the feldercarb is that he's working with. And it works, and the line gets going. And the tylium rolls. And when he pulls his arm out, it's ripped open by the machinery, and he begins to scream.
Seelix deals with my Danny, as everybody stares. Children. Chief. Fenner, talking loudly through it, and they lay the boy down upon the floor, his arm half gone, and Chief looks at him, and looks at Seelix, and looks at Xeno Fenner. Chief thinks about machines, and people, and war, and mutiny, and how solving problems is not the same as keeping them alive. And Chief stands up, as Seelix is shouting for gauze, and he meets Fenner's eyes -- it only takes one look -- and the two of them make their way down the line. Down past the belt, and the smelter, and the engine, and the motor, and the fire, and the sparks, and the ore, and everybody watches, stares. And Galen Tyrol looks at the lever, and at Fenner, and he does the math.
Xeno's Paradoxes are twofold: the second paradox ("You Cannot Even Start") illustrates how if a Geminon wants to reach a Caprican freighter, even if it's stationary, he has to go half the way; before he gets half the way, he must go a quarter; but first, one-eighth; but before then, a sixteenth. The first states that if you have a Caprican and a Geminon, the Geminon has to take a certain amount of time to reach the place where the Caprican already was. In this time, the Caprican has moved forward: the Geminon has to break that glass ceiling and move forward again. Whenever Achilles reaches a place the tortoise has been, even over generations, he still has farther to go. (Even though it's shitty to call the estate tax "the death tax," that doesn't change the essential shittiness of not having an estate tax at all, because money is changing hands whether it's earned or not; graduate education is the secret magic hacker codes of the world that rich white men hand down to their rich white sons, along with their money, and everybody else can suck it.)
Chief pulls the levers back, at the head of the line, and the line stops. He hops up jauntily on a hatch ladder, swinging like Curious George, like a member of the Miserables chorus, like a perfect idiot, and calls out: "This plant is off-line! We're on strike!" A thousand dirty hands raise into the air, pound against the belt, against the line, and into the air again.
Back on Galactica , the deckhands are having a great old time, playing cards and giggling, as a grip of Pilots come storming down the stairs, ready for bullshit. At their point is Starbuck, making a face that can only be described as scary as shit. Pollux -- looking like Cally's white-trash aunt who's actually just a couple of years older than Cally, and they gossip about the family on their breaks, only probably their families are dead so the metaphor kind of falls apart, but you know they smoke cigarettes -- looks up from her game, all, "Need somethin', Captain?" Now, I can barely even remember who Kara is at this point, but I know you don't fucking talk to her like that. I was reading the old recaps the other day, and I was kind of horribly surprised by this whole speech about her during the Occupation, how she had to be in Leoben Stir because otherwise she would rock out so hardcore nobody would survive and the Occupation would never have happened. I can barely remember loving her that much. (This episode helps.) So she's like, "Fucking A?" And Pollux, not without grace, apologizes that they're on "vital missions only" and that they've sent the CAP out, so they've done it. Racetrack asks what the hell she means, and Pollux admits that Chief, via Cally, has put them on strike. And I know it's kind of lame and story-ordered, but damn if I didn't cheer right then too, thanks to little Danny Noon. He's like my new Billy, I might be bringing him up without warning for years now.
Chief is escorted down a corridor by Marines, walking past lots of people: deck hands surely, maybe pilots, proud and beautiful Cally, holding their son. In the brig, soon enough, he's visited by the Admiral, and he stands, bummed to even be having this conversation. "Are you aware that your deck gang is participating in a work stoppage?" Chief corrects him: it's called a general strike. He's right. "It's a mutiny. And do you know what we do with mutineers? We shoot them, Chief." He's right too. Commercial.
Chief: "We're leaving people behind, Admiral. People are locked into their jobs, they have no control over their lives, they have no say. We're abandoning them to their fate." He compares it to Ajaxing them on some planet like Bulldog. Not the point. You know, it's funny, because I have had to do so many wild backbends but the end result is still this: no matter who the guys on top are, or the guys on the bottom, you don't put guns in the
Temple. And what everybody but Chief -- but including Gaius -- is saying is that we're back there. Three and Cavil and Doral keeping order looks a lot like this; Cain is about to get a shoutout in a major way. "That is not the issue. The men and women on this ship are not allowed to disobey an order, especially in support of some kind of fracking labor dispute." Chief points out that they've launched CAP and nobody's abandoned their post, so technically nobody's in danger, assuming the Cylons don't show up after 49+ days, which is pretty much what happened after the Resurrection Ship. Adama defines this correctly as mutiny, and: "It stops now." Chief says all he's looking for is a sit-down with Roslin; Adama goes him one better and grabs the phone without speaking to Chief. "This is the Admiral. Arrest Cally Tyrol. Take her, under armed guard, directly to the starboard repair bay." He hangs up; Chief asks what the frack he's doing. "I'm gonna put her up against the bulkhead, and I'm gonna shoot her, as a mutineer." Tell me the difference.
"Are you out of your frackin' mind? Cally was just following my orders!" Adama says this makes her a ringleader, so she'll go first. "And then the rest of your dead gang: Figurski, Seelix, Pollux..." Chief slams the bars of his cell, still not getting the stakes here: "You won't do this. We have a son." Adama speaks the truth. "Understand me. The very survival of this ship may depend on someone getting an order that they don't want to do. And if they hesitate, if they feel that orders are sometimes optional, then this ship will perish. And so will your son. And the entire human race." All this unfinished business. All the chances and the impossible choices. "I don't want to do this, Chief. But I will put ten Callys up against the wall, to make sure that this ship and this Fleet are not destroyed." Chief stares at him, and makes the same informed decision that Laura did earlier. He's right; it makes sense. "Fine. I'll call it off." Adama gets Cally on the phone, and summons Chief out of his cell.
"You okay?" Don't worry about me, Cally says. "I've been to the brig before." (Don't, um, mention that you've been in the brig for murdering your husband's ex-girlfriend, in real life? Just FYI.) "Everything's okay. Call off the strike." She asks if they caved; she thinks that's what this about. He takes the shortcut, the Lie Of Earth shortcut, and says they did. Whatever keeps you alive. They didn't, they won't, they can't. Whatever keeps you alive. She accepts this, even though it's self-evident that they haven't, and they can't. "I'll take care of it. Galen, I'm proud of you." He tells his wife, like a child, to give the phone to the Marine, and hands off to Adama, who orders her released. Something in Chief's demeanor gave him what he needed: "You can go now, Chief. I thought you had something that you wanted to discuss with the President?" They keep going further. I miss the Cylons.
On Colonial One, Roslin offers the Chief another in a series of drinks; he declines. "Madame President, I've seen people drafted into service based purely on where they were born." She Friday Night Lightses that they're selected on their skills, and he points out that this is the same thing. "Capricans are more likely to be professionals, Aerelons are more likely to be farmers. It's a fact of life." So? "It's a fact I can't change," she nods. "True. But I think we can level the playing field." And before we roll our eyes, let's hear him out. This is a particular world with particular concerns, namely that the population is severely limited and the last thing they need are Colonial designations at all: I say give 'em true representative democracy and let them all be humans. "There are a lot of dirty jobs that need to be done every day in this Fleet: Cleaning, hauling, low-level maintenance, things like that. These are the kind of jobs that I think should be allocated to people who..." He's so dirty; one of the cool things about this episode is how motherfrackin' dirty he looks at this point. "Well. People like yourself. No offense." She smiles with all the Roslin she's got left, and she means it: "None taken. Go ahead," she says, like your boss's boss. "Let some of the people on Colonial One get their hands dirty for a change." Um, other than the blood of New Caprica? The thousands of detained and broken and killed? Apocalypses are relative. I've never thought it was necessary to bring Laura down in order to prove a point. That line is silly. "Done," she says. "What else?"
"People that are in dangerous and high-stress jobs need to be rotated out, for R&R. And in order to do that, we need a formal training program." Again, the Lie Of Earth. I love it. Even Roslin's like, "We can talk about a training program later, but right now, we need to focus on maintaining the workforce that we have. And this is gonna have to be area where the union gives ground." He cocks his head. "Oh, I'm sorry," she says. And you know, it's that "oh, I'm sorry" that makes me suspicious. She's learned how you play them. Not as Cain, lining them up, and not as Adama, hugging them and tearing off after them whenever they freak out. Actually play them. Actually give them exactly what they want, like Zarek and Gaius know how to do: everything they want, in the worst way possible. If I give you this, will you shut up? No? How about this?
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were engaged in collective bargaining on behalf of the Colonial Worker's Alliance. If that's not the case, then..." Chief protests that the union died on New Caprica, as though her cynical wording weren't enough of a red flag, and that music starts to play in case you were thinking this was legit. "Chief, the workers in this Fleet, they need someone to represent them in their interests. And if this society is becoming truly polarized between an entrenched political class and a disenfranchised underclass, we are doomed." Just in case he's been reading that damned book. "We won't need the Cylons to destroy us, we'll destroy ourselves. The Fleet that arrives at Earth will not represent Colonial society at all. I am willing to fight for that society until my dying breath. I would love it if you would fight for that society as well." Which is dumb on many levels, number one being that you don't have to preserve the horrible judgments and prejudices of "Colonial society" with these numbers: you become something new. She should protect the things that matter: humanity, the numbers obviously, but after that, the things that make us human. Law, faith, all those things that are hard to talk about. All the big stuff. Chief's eyes go lovely and dreamy: "Hmm," he nods. "I will. I will, Madame President. I will." I didn't want to bring up useful idiots with Cally, because I thought I'd get more hatemail about Cally, but: useful idiot. Unions are the same thing as communism, on a manageable level, but don't ever think you're being handed something. She just gave him hush money, but the money is imaginary and useless. "Congratulations on being so much of a pain in our ass that we threatened to shoot your wife. That's how we do. How about that becomes your job?"
Down in the hangar bay, Chief's calling out job orders, on another day. He doesn't give Seelix any orders; Starbuck arrives. "Chief Tyrol?" The last time they spoke, I think, she was opting out of the Circle, which included him not very enthusiastically, and Seelix very much enthusiastically. Chief's friendly with her, but she goes into "nugget"/"you can call me God" mode, and yells at Chief about how one of her nuggets failed to show up for basic flight instruction this morning. Chief's in on it: "I'm sorry to hear that, Captain." Starbuck, our Artemis, asks if he knows where the frack Diana Seelix is, and he calls her up, front and center. She hops right the hell up, and Kara yells at her: "Flight instruction began twenty minutes ago, Seelix! You wanna be a pilot, or not?" Seelix stutters, and Starbuck yells some more, and it's awesome, because we've all seen this scene a hundred times, but not on this show and not with these people, which equals heartwarming. "You will think when I tell you to think, nugget! And you might want to look at the plan of the day, because then maybe you'd know where you're supposed to be! And you might actually get there on time!" They face off; Seelix is beautiful. "And you're out of uniform!" Chief offers to help. Oh, man. I don't know what my deal is. I hate Seelix, and I hate this whole class issue and the deck hands and whatever, aspiration, but this like broke my heart with joy. I have a high need for approval -- so it's awesome how Chief is in on this the whole time -- but a correspondingly high hatred of authority-- so fucking stop yelling at me, idiot -- so scenes like this don't usually get to me. Anyway, Chief pulls out an ensign's pin, to put her in uniform. Seelix thanks him sweetly as he passes his clipboard off to Kara in order to pin Seelix: "You have to be an officer to fly a Viper, you know that." He turns to the deck hands: "Detail! And salute!"
Same music, lovely. She's gorgeous and strong. They all salute her. He salutes her. It's so weird to see NCOs doing this stuff because we never see it. Seelix thanks him over and over, a hundred times, and he congratulates her, calling her Ensign. "All right," shouts Starbuck, "This is all very touching, but you were supposed to be in Ready Room Four twenty minutes ago, Ensign! Which means that you are falling behind on your first day! So move it! Don't look at him. Move it! Move it!" Seelix heads out, and Starbuck grins at Chief, as the other deck hands laugh. "Be nice," he says. She snorts sweetly, indicating somehow, because she rocks, that she loves both Chief and Seelix, and that being an asshole is her favorite part of the job. And then in the foreground, there's Diana Seelix, heading off to Ready Room Four, giant smile on her face, proud and beautiful.
week: I'm so unspoiled that I'm making Joe R do the recaplet, but there's a shot in the preview that looks like, thanks to her going crazy, we'll get to see Kara, inside a Viper, inside her fake scary Leoben apartment, inside the Detention Center. So awesome, so awful, so possible that she'll finally break Lee for good, see you then. Boom boom boom!