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The cliffhanger ends with Starbuck handing her gun over to the President to prove she's herself. All it does is prove to Roslin, who's got mortality on the brain lately, that Kara's being prodigal with her life because she's got spares. So she shoots at her! But misses, thanks either to her chemo, innate goodness, or the machinations of one or more supernatural forces. Knowing this show, it's all of the above.
Sadly, the missed shot shatters the Admiral's portrait of himself with Laura, presaging a pretty intense showdown between them once Kara's back in the brig. In Adama's quarters, they filibuster nastily about each other for ten hours or so, and of course are totally right, to the point that Bill becomes an alcoholic and Laura's hair starts falling out.
Lee visits Kara in her cell and they talk about nothing, but then make out, and he tells her he believes her. Then he gets a surprise going-away party/slow clap from the entire military, including Dualla, who's like, "You ruined my life, on purpose! Here's a hug." Then he goes off to be the new Quorum member for I think Sagittaron, which is kind of sickening if you think about it.
On the Basestar, a new Six named Natalie goes totally Hermione Granger about the Raiders, whom Cavil has decided to lobotomize after their encounter with Anders. There's a split vote between the Sixes, Eights, and Twos (Leoben) -- who note the irony of treating the Raiders like dumb machines -- and the Fours (Simon), Ones (Cavil), and Fives (Doral) -- who are jerks. The heartbreaking tiebreaker? Poor old Boomer, who knows a little bit about desperately wanting to just be a lobotomized machine that doesn't think or feel or hurt or remember. She makes more Cylon history by dissenting from the other Eights, but I'm sure nothing horrible will happen there. Boomer usually has such an easy time.
Luckily, realizing the futility of the parliamentary system when dealing with an atheocratic zealot like Cavil, Natalie retaliates. I feel like I'll be saying that a lot. This time, the nataliation lies in giving sentience to the Centurions, who take out the Ones, Fours and Fives (that we can see, and possibly all of them) in a big old bloody Michael Corleone blowout. It's awesome.
Bill visits Kara and yells at her for pissing off the President, but Kara calls him out for acting like Laura's girlfriend, so he chokes her and leaves her in jail. Later, he reconsiders and sets Kara up with a literal garbage scow and skeleton crew so she can go find Earth. Because he believes her and all, but Laura Roslin is scary as balls right now, and you can't really blame him for doing this on the DL.
Best part: Gaius meets Chip Gaius (who specifies that he's "separate" from Six, but we'll see) for the first time, and as you can imagine, they fall in complete and total gay love immediately.
Another part: coincidentally, just as the words "written by Michael Angeli" cross the screen, Tigh orders Tory to prostitute herself to Gaius on the off chance that he knows anything about the Final Final. He doesn't, of course, but she lets him screw the polytheism out of her anyway, and cries the whole time, but apologizes for it, because apparently some women just cry during sex, and it doesn't necessarily mean anything's the matter, so you should probably lecture them on religion. While they're crying. While you're fucking them. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
THE FIRST BANG
(In which Mommy and her Cancer once again show disinterest in Kara's Bullshit, a Toaster helps a Toasterfrakker and a Hot Marine, and the Admiral has a Tiny Crisis.)
Picking up once again from the cliffhanger, XO Tigh and CAG Helo are leading a Marine squad (starring Gunny Matthias!) through the ship. Not sure how they know where she is, but apparently everybody knows where she is. I have this image of Bill trying to keep it secret and just accidentally letting it slip with everybody -- including possible Cylon infiltrator Starbuck -- exactly where Laura's hot Presidential ass is riding out chemo. Go on, twist his arm.
Any case, Tigh is interested as ever in making as much drama as possible about Kara's unknown status, not that I blame him, because either she's a Cylon -- in which case his ass is covered -- or she's Kara Thrace -- in which case there's a total probability that she's doing something highly fucked up no matter what time of day it is.
"Look alive! And for frak's sake, don't shoot the Godsdamned President!" On principle, and out of loyalty, I agree. Helo tells him to shut up and let him talk to Kara, but Tigh's all, "You talk your ass up a storm, but it ends with the first bang."
Over the PA, Tigh tells the Gods and everybody about how Kara's got the Prez by the thinning locks, and Adama bounces from the bridge, giving Gaeta what he calls the "comm," which I think he thinks is what you call the navigational "con." I love him.
Laura stares at Kara, scared, and Kara sees something that might be mostly Laura, but isn't just Laura. This isn't the first time, as my friend Karen pointed out, Kara's come home to a mommy in treatment, who doesn't want to hear it and...well, listen to her: "I want to hate you so much. So much... You had a vision. Remember? ... I trusted you. On a vision. That's it. A vision." Breaks my heart. And as the squad comes closer, and Kara falls apart right in front of her, let's take a moment. Not a long moment, but a moment.
That moment when you can't take it anymore, when all your doors are locked in front of you and they stick you in a room and tell you that choices aren't something you're going to be having, that's a river running through this episode like blood. Laura, Caprica, Boomer, Athena, and now Kara have all spent time -- in that very brig -- for following the voice of the Gods, or God, or programming, speaking in their hearts. Running through their souls, like blood. And once the war secedes is when we can start looking at the differences between us, here, on our side of the line. Whatever it is. That's when we have to look at, for example, how far our rights have slipped; how much of our world we were missing before the war.
What's happening here is that there's a woman saying something divine is speaking to her, telling her that the Fleet, her people, are going the wrong way. And once somebody gets a message like that, it behooves the person in power to lock them away, in a little room. It happened to Laura, it happened to Three. If you're right, you get a Boomer: somebody who doesn't even know they're a bomb tossed over the line. But if you're wrong, you get a person with a mission, driven, pushed into a place they never needed to be pushed. And you can go on with your life, we do it all the time, we walk away out of the light and into the darkness, like Cavil. But what we have to remember is that there's a little room, in the dark, with a girl inside, and that girl is right. I mentioned Joan of Arc last week, and now here it is again. That Antigone thing: a girl in a cage who is right. And if that girl happens to be Kara Thrace -- or a pissed-off Six on a Hermione mercy mission, as we'll see -- you best watch your hot Presidential ass.
Or as the Chorus Leader in Antigone puts it: "The maid shows herself passionate child of passionate sire, and knows not how to bend before troubles." (Antigone means "unbending.") And since we're talking about Kara, the Chorus of Theban Elders later says: "Still the same tempest of the soul vexes this maiden with the same fierce gusts." There are a lot of creepy old men in this episode doing creepy old things. Some -- most -- justified, but creepy nonetheless. I like Antigone because what it amounts to, basically, is one girl, just a normal girl, standing up to a chorus (and a series) of creepy old men, and telling them to fuck off. Because she knows what's right.
"Then for this shall her guards have cause to rue their slowness," says Creon, and he's right about it this time. She screams like a beast, as Tigh and her man Helo come closer and closer.
"I saw Earth," she spits at Laura, who's turned from one-time Antigone to Creon in her time. ("Maybe last time you were the prisoner," Leoben said, "And I was the interrogator.") "I saw it with my own eyes. And it's calling me back. We're going the wrong way. Why can't you trust me?" Kara uncocks the gun and hands it over, handle first.
"Not through dread of any human pride could I answer to the Gods for breaking these. Die I must -- I knew that well, how should I not -- even without thy edicts. But if I am to die before my time, I count that a gain: for when anyone lives as I do, compassed about with evils, can such an one find aught but gain in death?" Antigone again. Pyxis means "compass," and the Pyxis was lost, captained by Tarney. One of the tribunal that set Gaius free. Just as Kara was returning and Gaius was going forth, the compass was lost. Or maybe it was lost already, and this is how we return: in silence.
"Shoot me. If you think I'm a Cylon then I'm your enemy. Shoot your enemy." She slams the gun down onto the table, daring her: after me, after this, after Athena: tell me the name of your enemy, in the house of my father, and then shoot. "Take it!" ("If my present deeds are foolish in thy sight, it may be that a foolish judge arraigns my folly.") "I'm no more a Cylon than you are. And you know it." And Roslin prays she does, prays she could admit what she knows. Prays she could think the unthinkable, and thank the Gods for this miracle, and take Kara into her arms again.
"I've put my life on the line for this frakkin' ship. I have ate [sic], slept, and fought to the people that I love. I have pissed off my friends, I have broken more rules than I've followed! I fracked up, okay, I messed up. But it's all that I have. Those people are my family. And none of us belong here." (There's a lot of great dialogue in this very great episode, but that's probably one of my favorite lines, ever, on this show. That's up there with "I didn't paint that symbol, Kara. You did.") I mean, talk about a statement applicable to everybody on this show and everybody off of it and everybody that we've lost. "Those people are my family, and none of us belong here." That's the entire point of everything, and it's so beautiful, and it's the one way you should be able to get through to Laura Roslin: those are her people. Her people. And they don't deserve this, this pain and this suffering and this misuse and this terror. These are our people and they deserve better. The fact that Laura doesn't lay down her burdens right this second is the first sign.
"O my city... Thou holy ground of Thebe whose chariots are many: ye, at least, will bear me witness...who have no home on the earth or in the shades, no home with the living or with the dead." Tigh spots the fallen Marines and keeps running; Helo gets worried. "Shoot me. If I'm a Cylon, shoot me!" And Laura Roslin reaches down, in one movement, marveling at the girl before her and the words coming out of her mouth: "They made you perfect, didn't they?" Fixed is not unbroken. They made you perfect, too.
Tigh hears the discharge and the squad comes running, busting into the suite; Matthias orders Kara onto the ground and Kara's as astounded as ever -- "What are you doing? Let go of me! Get off me! I am not a Cylon, Matthias!" It's almost hilarious, how put out she sounds. "I am not a Cylon! Jeez!" The Colonel takes the gun from Laura, nodding quietly to her, as Kara continues to struggle. ("And when, after a long while, this storm had passed, the maid was seen; and she cried aloud with the sharp cry of a bird in its bitterness...") The Admiral arrives, shouting nonsense orders, taking inventory, comforting the President, as they wrestle Starbuck to her feet.
"Listen to me, please. I'm losing it. [Among other things] the ringing, the way to Earth. It's getting weaker. Don't you understand? Don't any of you understand? It was so... It was so clear, like it was coming from the room." They stare at her, hard. "Stop looking at me like that. I can feel it slipping away. Even without jumping! As we move... it's half of what it was when I got here. Half. If we keep jumping it'll be gone, and we'll never find it again. I thought that's what we wanted. A way to Earth. Do you hear me?"
The Colonel shakes with rage, and orders her out. She turns her gaze first on the President, full of holy fire: "You better work on your aim, because I'm not gonna stop! You're gonna have to kill me!" And then to Bill Adama: "One more jump and it'll be gone! Admiral! Admiral!"
"O city of my fathers, in the land of Thebe! O ye gods, eldest of our race! They lead me hence now -- now, they tarry not! Behold me, princes of Thebes, the last daughter of the house of your kings. See what I suffer, and from whom, because I feared to cast away the fear of Heaven."
39, 676 survivors, after that abortive fight in the Nebula. One woman pointing east and the other pointing west. One pointing toward the dawn, and one holding the con in her hands, jealous and afraid. Mostly afraid, after all, I think. But the sad-ass trick of this episode is to remember that we're back in logic-problem mode, all through the story: how do you know when you know? If the Gods, or God, or the "original programmers," are telling us two different things, and aren't here to clarify, how do you know if you know? Do you stick with tradition, historical power, the received wisdom of the ages, the emerging aristocracy? Do you listen to Gaius, Zarek, and Dualla, and tear the system apart to start fresh?
When you're caught, every scene asks, between two untenable and terrifying alternatives, neither of which are correct. When you're in that place between one and zero, between life and death, between peace and war. Female and male. Human democracy demands that e every pluribus there must come an unum, and Cylon society is quickly realizing that everyone eventually degenerates into many; even their Gods are changing number all over the place, from one to many and many to one. So when the world demands two separate and antithetical actions from you, what do you do? Where do you go when you can't get out?
REMEMBER TWO THINGS
(In which Creepy Old Men look at Breasts, tell Ladies to shut up about God, and ask a Friend to try Something New.)
As the Hybrid speaks, Boomer dances for Cavil, shirtless. It does not look comfortable, and it might not be Boomer, but given the episode and given what follows, maybe that's where she's headed. Maybe that is what the show needs to do to her. Maybe that's all the show can think to do to her, having done everything else to her besides make her fuck Gaius Baltar. Because only a truly evil show would force anybody else to do that at this point. Right?
In the meantime, and before we get to the point of this series of moments, let's play Hybrid Theatre. "...The excited state decays by vibrational relaxation into the first excited singlet state..." (Heat up a thing, excite it, and sometimes it'll split in two -- to our lame-ass senses anyway -- but eventually the anarchy of angels and entropy will slow things down enough that the Magic Eye picture of conflict will resolve itself back into UrSkeks and we can all chill out, so to speak. Unities will reveal themselves into that first excited singlet state, back when we could be happy, could go merrily.) "... yes yes and merrily we go reduce atmospheric nitrogen by 0.03% it is not much consolation that society will pick up the bits leaving us at eight modern where punishment rather than interdiction is paramount..." Well, attending to the Apocalypse -- How many Apocalypses is this now? Depends on who's counting -- does entail a certain amount of regret, that others will be picking up the bits and carrying on and calling you foolish and old, if they even remember who you are.
The punishment/interdiction thing is interesting, though. "Interdiction" means an intervening sanction, like, in the Church an interdiction means you can't partake of the Sacraments. So what's interesting is that if you set punishment alongside it, that's something that happens to you. You get smacked or yelled at or whatever. But interdiction is the opposite, it's having something not happen to you. You are denied, for example, the glory of heaven. (And how bad am I personally at reconciling the Sharon and Karl parts of my own heretical Hera upbringing? I got "interdiction" and "intercession" confused, and almost died of joy just now.) Which is so fucking Cylon, going along with their apophatic construction of God, that they need to be moving from a "punishment" (guilt) culture to an "interdiction" (shame) culture, just so they will fucking stop yelling at each other for five seconds, by worrying more about what they're giving up than what they're getting.
"...Please cut the fuse they will not harm their own end of line." She seems to suggest that "eight modern" is where we all get left behind in this cycle, and that we've somehow lost track of what needed to get accomplished this time, and finishes this line of the prophecy by asking them directly to "cut the fuse," knowing that "they" won't harm their own. Meaning either the humans won't take out the Final Five because they've finally grown enough to understand how stupid us/them is, or that the Raiders won't attack the Fleet because ditto, or the Five themselves aren't interested in hurting anybody at all, because life means growing and loving more.
"Limiting diffusions to two dimensions increases the number of evolutionary jumps within the species ..." This is the part that really interests me. "Diffusion" is the movement of stuff from high-pressure to low-pressure areas or systems: if I make it weird enough or apply enough pressure to Athena, she's going to decide it's less of a hassle to be human -- but since she's an Eight, she's going to get crazy about being totally, totally, scarily, boringly human. Or if I fuck with Boomer enough, she's going to give up the beauty of humanity and synthesis and -- say -- choose to be an insensate animal, a creature, with no time but now, with no memories or pain or humanity left in her. But theoretically, you could diffuse any number of directions: Three diffused upwards, and Cavil always seems to be diffusing down. Leoben seems to diffuse into crazypantsland. You and I diffuse constantly, from love to love and hate to hate, from family to family, from anger to delight to rage to fear. Limiting the show to two dimensions, to the X axis of love/fear, human/Cylon, we got a lot accomplished. By restricting the vectors of evolution to just a couple of dimensions, as the war has done, you increase the amount of change in a given organism or soul: good and evil, them and us, pain and love, loneliness and democracy, are fingers squeezing carbuncle: we're just what comes out.
But what happens when you transcend the binary? When you accomplish the story of antithesis and start looking around for more equals, more synthesis, more love? What do you do when you can't get out? You turn into something else. You rise. "...Rise and measure the temple of the Five transformation is the goal they will not harm their own data/font synchronization complete..." Speaking of Angeli, speaking of data and font, or message and medium, synchronizing: "Everything that rises, every single thing, converges in heaven. You change the world by changing yourself, and you change yourself by stepping across the lines, as the angel begs you to do. That line of salt is human and Cylon history and tears, and nothing changes until we step across and hold each other. We erase that line with love and mercy and faith, until it never existed: that salt is the tears of a million children, caught in an hallucination that we're different from each other. The lie that you're alone. Become more Cylon or become more human, all the angel needs from you is this: to become more. To rise."
Natalie's the show's new and wonderful Six, with hair the color that Gina's turned into. She's beautiful, and brilliant, and angry, and ready, and dangerous, like Sixes have to be. And what she's telling Cavil is that this time, the Hybrid's clearly telling them something. Directly. Forcing herself, squashing herself down in time and space enough to say something real, something direct, something you can get at without Leoben standing by. Or an Oracle. I need to see an Oracle run into a Hybrid one of these days and have a margarita and get crunk.
Cavil scoffs, because he knows it, because the Hybrids never shut up: "The Hybrid is always telling us something. They're supposed to maintain operations on each ship -- and recap the events in each episode in a humorous and snarky way -- not vomit metaphysics!" Everybody rolls their eyes at once in agreement, and Creon goes, "I would not answer the seer with a taunt," and Teiresias is all, "But thou dost, in saying that I prophesy falsely."
Leoben, Natalie, and an Eight stare at Cavil, looking summoned to the principal's office, looking overjoyed, looking younger than they've ever looked, finishing each other's sentences, making wishes and having dreams, giggling and wriggling and generally dorking out.
"All right, I give up. What. What is she trying to tell us?"
"They're in the Colonial Fleet," whispers the Eight. "With the humans." He's not giving them an inch, these three tainted motherfuckers, these Three who have loved and been loved by the humans, these who believe, these who have demanded. These who rise, no matter how frakked the angle. "Um, like they who?" And Leoben whispers too: "The...Final Five."
Natalie steps forward, of course: "The Raiders refuse to fight because they sense the Final Five might be in the Colonial Fleet," and Leoben sighs, "They could've been caught, they could be in hiding," and Cavil stops them right there. In their joy, in their worry and their care and their love, in their rising. Stop right there. "Turn around, go and take a cleansing walk, and I am gonna try and forget what I just heard." Which is what Cylons do best: take all those messy ones and zeroes and sweep 'em into the Recycle Bin, like on New Caprica, like after Gina but before the bomb, like every time it gets too weird, like after DEMAND LOVE. What do you call this? DEMAND ANYTHING is taken, and this is the opposite of that. DEMAND SALVATION. DEMAND REDEMPTION. DEMAND TRUTH. In memoriam to Three, I like that best. DEMAND TRUTH. (And RECONCILIATION, of course.)
"The Final Five, Cavil, they're near. This is far too important," says Natalie, and Leoben continues, "What their eyes must have seen, witnessed over time!" His joy, finally uncoupled from that model's obsession with a certain badass and the raping of her, you know, this delight. He touches God. He knows the Hybrid, he swims in the swim, he drinks of the drink, he's McStreamy, and whatever's on the other side of her, we're touching. He's on fire with it. Eight grins hugely, ignoring Cavil altogether, desperate to belong, made to love and be loved in return, looking always for common ground: "Think they look anything like us?" (You think the numbers are out of sequence? Possible, I'm not a producer, I wasn't there two years ago and I am not there now. But she's more human than she needs to be, more human than the Final Final has to be. And while Seven is not the middle of Twelve, it sure the fuck is the middle of Thirteen. Mostly it's just nice to see an Eight smiling for once, without that culty gleam Athena sometimes gets whenever she's declaring her allegiance to the enemy.)
"-- That's enough! Don't you realize what you're doing? You're openly discussing the Final Five! That's forbidden! You're toying with our survival. Look at yourselves. Look, there's millions of Twos [Leoben, whom I would have made Twelve because he's so Pisces-y and Chief's so Taurus-y] have that nose. Millions of Sixes possess that mouth. Eights share those breasts, and Ones [Cavil, who I thought would be a Libra because of his binary sensibilities, but now realize is an Aries like me, and I humbly admit that I totally get that] have this brain. We're mechanized copies. There's a reason the original programmers clearly felt that it's a mistake for us to contact the Final Five!" Natalie disagrees, but not necessarily because Eight's got about a billion awesome things going besides her admittedly awesome -- and bullet-proof -- breasts. "Violating that programming threatens our survival," says Cavil. Which I can't disagree with, and makes me sad for him. And just to get it out of the way, one more time: six of one, half-dozen of the other. Today, right this minute, right this second, you tell me the difference between Cavil and Laura Roslin. I mean it. "Take those secrets and truths and set them aside. Even if it endangers the F5/Earth, I want you to shut up. Stop thinking, stop wondering. My way or the highway. The stakes are too high."
"Something has changed," worries Natalie, and Cavil nods. "Thoughts have changed. Yes, they change. The Raiders changed. That's where all this started, with them. Somehow they exceeded their programming, and unlike us, they can't correct themselves. So we're gonna have to do it for them." Instead of screaming THREE at the top of her lungs at this pronouncement, this Roslinesque offer of assistance, this emerging aristocracy, Natalie says something that would be hilarious, if she weren't so Canadian, and that will be echoed later: "Do what?" Reconfigure their neural architecture, shave down their heuristic responses. Which Leoben helpfully translates: "Dumb them down? Lobotomize them?" (And thanks for mentioning architecture in front of my fevered brain: "You mean send them to the Daru Mozu?" Because no, I'm not letting him go.)
"They're tools, not pets. But in any case, it has to be done." "Says who?" asks Natalie, and Cavil says another awesome, dense line: "Says God Almighty the voice of reason, that's who. When are you gonna hear it?" Atheist Administrator doesn't admit Six's God, but he admits the voice of reason, machine logic, ones and zeroes, and that's the voice he hears and follows. And that is beautiful, because it's received wisdom, so again, compare to Roslin: take a bunch of drugs and read the Bible and see what happens/refuse to admit that you have a soul and RTFM and see what happens. Six of one...
Natalie gets close: "You don't have the authority to make any change without a majority vote." But he'd never push the issue if he hadn't thought of that, so fine, they vote. "The Fours [Simon, Cancer, who I had as Tigh or Anders] and Fives [Doral] will be on my side." Natalie's like, "Shut up, there will be a vote and you will bite me." Her last line is sad, and chilling, and beautiful as a song: "The Raiders hear what we hear." The sound of God, singing you home. That's what they hear. They will not harm their own.
"The Raiders are simple machines," he scoffs, and Natalie shakes her head. "No. Something extraordinary has happened. Something is calling to us. Pushing us to discover our origins, to understand our place in the universe." God, that's like verbatim Three. Don't push it, girl. Cavil doesn't play. "The Raiders are part of that, and the Final Five..." Cavil interrupts in a way that ends it all: "-- Are anywhere but with the humans."
(Anywhere. Think about that. The first rule of any of this shit should be that you can't prove a negative. And yet here's Laura saying, "Thrace cannot be a human," and Cavil saying with absolute certainty, "The Five are anywhere but." That's the cage: that's when Natalie folds her arms and makes that face, that Six face that means she's blocked but not down, that angry and frustrated face that means you need to watch the fuck out. And somewhere -- this has all happened before -- Creon's saying, "[This] should be thy heart's fixed law: in all things to obey thy father's will." So where do you go when you can't get out? What unexpected angles, what excited dimensions, when we unbend?)
Meanwhile, Chief's running late to his Super Secret Final Four meeting, because Cally is -- for once -- having trouble sleeping. Anders asks after Kara, and Tigh -- who is hilarious here, when he's not being sickening -- almost laughs. "I saw her. She's crazy as a latrine rat. If anything, she's more like Starbuck than ever." Which I love, because of course Tigh would recognize her crazy ass right now, but Anders is all, "Dude, she's my wife." Which is sweet. But the point, Tigh reminds him, is how Laura came this close to putting a bullet in her skull for possibly being a Cylon. "Someone you love might get a bullet in the head," he's saying, "Because everything has changed." Maybe right through the eye, even. "You are one! We bring attention to ourselves, we're frakked. If Starbuck is one of us, she's playing it big the other way."
There's something lovely, something Eightish, in the sad way Tory sighs: "The four of us heard the music and sought each other out. She hasn't. We're still missing one." Like she can't wait until they're all five, all twelve, together. This part isn't my favorite part, because of what follows, and we don't know enough about Tory to go there with her and feel her feelings, so it just gets confusing and gross in a way that I don't think is intended, but that part is so real. "We're still missing one." Like she needs to make the pieces fit, that link, and she'll do anything to find that connection. Anything, as we'll learn, being a pretty big list. I'm not sure if I love the idea of the one female F4 being the one who desperately needs the family together, if you see what I mean, but Rekha Sharma is a fucking bad-ass, and I hate that this episode is her first real outing. She has no more reality this week than Dualla, or Anders used to, and it feels like Tory is getting shoved out into a spotlight and then forced to do things that I would rather be more sympathetic to. That's what it feels like, anyway, but it's acted perfectly, and written not so bad.
This part's funny: Chief goes, half-thinky, "Baltar..." and before he can finish the internal thought, Tigh gives him the most powerful I will eat your fucking lunch face that he like physically recoils before clarifying: "Not Baltar, but... when I found him in the Temple on the algae planet, he was with one of those skin jobs, the one they call D'Anna. She saw something in there, I don't know what it is. But they talked. He might know something. He's got those One-God nutcases believing he's some kind of healer, he brought some boy out from a coma." (Adorably, Chief's Canadian talk strikes a funny chord with American ears, suggesting that the boy was brought oat.) "Maybe he knows who the Fifth is," muses Tigh, and Tory takes it a step further: "Yeah, maybe he knows who we are." A classically Tory grim deadpan, but Tigh runs with it: "Then we gotta get in close and find out." Galen wonders if they should take him oat for deinks, but Tigh's got a better -- a more Cavileer, if you will -- idea.
"Well, he is accomplished at two things. Lying in his cell, and lying in a woman." (P.S., I'm not convinced "lying in a woman" is a thing that people actually say or have ever said.) "He'd poke a skinjob. He racked up a Six, that's a given..." (Wouldn't Tigh just say "frak"? Why the dysphemisms? Whatever.) Tory is immediately like, "Fuck that." Tigh clarifies that she wouldn't have to "get on [her] back for him," but that maybe just her wiles would be enough. Or maybe he means a blowjob, I don't know. Tory's like, "And yet I still feel like you just whored me out." Where do you go when you can't get out?
Saul Motherfrakking Tigh does not have time for your feminism! (As A Pimp Named Slickback would say, "Did you know that at least 75% of bitches suffer from some kind of hearing loss? This alarming statistic means that, more likely than not, talking is not the most effective way to communicate with a bitch. That's when you have to hit her. Has not hitting the bitch been working? I mean, scientifically speaking, has not hitting the bitch achieved the desired result?") He loved Ellen more than a man has ever loved a woman, and killed her for doing this, and learned his Godsdamned lesson: When Saul Tigh turns your ass out, you best pay attention, because it's for the good of the Fleet, or at least the Insurrection, or at least the F4, or at least Saul Tigh. Six of one.
And somewhere Ismene warns her beloved sister, Antigone, "We must remember: first, that we were born women, as should not strive with men; , that we are ruled by the stronger, so we must obey in these things, and in things yet sorer."
THE THIRD OPTION IS ALWAYS GOING TO BE SYNTHESIS OR REVOLUTION
(In which Zeus asks Artemis WTF, six Robots engage in a Conversational Dispute, an Old Friend dies again, and Natalie threatens to Pray.)
Adama's in Kara's cell, pissed as hell after the hostage stunt she just pulled. "What were you doing? What were you thinking? What happened to you?" And Kara begins to sob, and delivers these lines in a very unattractive, but vérité, manner: "I saw Earth. The shape of it, the smell of it. The feel of it on my skin, in my pores. And I swear to you, it was like I'd been there before. Like I never left." Bill points out how she's now officially demonstrated that she's too dumb to have noticed that she's just screwed over the one ally she had, so what the fuck now? Now that she's proven she didn't have the guts to hold on and let him save her like she always did, she's pissed on them both. "Tell me, who's gonna help you?"
(Creon's son Haemon went crazy, and entered the tomb, and Creon cried aloud, "with a dread cry, "...And went in, and called to him with a voice of wailing: 'Unhappy, what deed hast thou done! What thought hath come to thee? What manner of mischance hath marred thy reason? Come forth, my child! I pray thee! I implore!')
Kara's ADD kicks in. "Hold on" what? "Wait" for who? "Yeah. Frak me, huh? It sure as hell isn't gonna be you." She sees the anger, the hurt she's getting out of him, and presses. What do you do when you can't get out? "You've gotta remind yourself that you're somebody else. You're the President's wetnurse." Bill's almost crying at this point, caught between his two greatest loves: "You're the one who doesn't have the guts."
("But the boy glared at him with fierce eyes, spat in his face, and without a word of answer, drew his cross-hilted sword, as his father rushed forth in flight.")
The Admiral attacks Kara, dropping her to the floor and choking her. Sometimes, a person you love lets you down, most horribly. Shoots you -- or threatens to shoot the person you've sworn to protect with your life -- and just right there, before your eyes, becomes a monster. It's hard to figure out, when that happens. Especially if, after all that, you still love her. If you wept at her grave, and begged her, begged the Heavens, begged the Gods you don't believe in, "Why?" And at the point when they come from beyond to hurt you one more time, to show you a face and a friendly hand, you have a lot of options. Adama, probably he chokes the person. Two times out of two, he chokes her. Six of one.
"Nice to know you still care, Admiral," she grunts from the floor, and he slams her head against the floor one more time and leaves, slamming the cell door behind him. All he wanted was a Cordelia scene, a fatherhood moment, a reconciliation. He doesn't know she already pulled the Athena move, already handed the gun over, and got burned. How much we've all changed, since Kobol. No? Now she's in a cage, no gun at all, no agency, nowhere to go. She laughs, and cries, hysterical. Even him. Another father gone. He slams the brig door behind him, as she's screaming: "We're going the wrong way!" He's her family, and neither of them -- none of them -- belong here.
"We have all conferred with our models, and the results are in. The [Simon] Fours and the [Doral] Fives have joined us [Cavil] Ones, and they voted to reconfigure the Raiders." Shocking, Natalie snorts, and reports that the [Leoben] Twos, Sixes, and Eights have voted against it. Making it a deadlock.
"Hopelessly. But you were right, and I'm machine enough to admit that I was wrong," Cavil smarms. What does he mean? "Well, something extraordinary has happened. ...Eight!"
Natalie demands to know what's going on, but instead of answering, he looks offstage, and Boomer comes pirouetting out on her tiptoes, with her breasts exposed. Just kidding, but it would have been funny. No, it's just regular Boomer, wearing her sad fake Colonial fatigues, her sad Boomer face. "I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I'll just say that this Eight has voted to reconfigure." Natalie's horrified, and Cavil smarts off that he's shocked too. The Eight with Natalie looks sad, and Boomer stares her down. ("We love you, Sharon, and we always will." Remember that? That was her, my Brokeback girl, my Nature Girl, my Boomer. They just keep killing her.) Natalie freaks: "But no one has ever voted against their model. No one! Is this true?" It's true. She looks at them in absolutely pain: how can you look at her, this beautiful, sad woman, this gorgeous misery, this ugly calm, this exhaustion, and think this is a lie? Of course Boomer wants brainlessness. It's the only thing that makes sense anymore.
"We have to be able to defend ourselves," she says. You're Boomer: They took away your heart, your sacred name, and put it in a box. They told you that you could never have it again, and it was never yours in the first place: a lie. Murdered. You did your pull-ups and wore your uniform like a costume, a monster, a machine on autopilot, nearly cracking up. You strayed so far they nearly boxed you. You were reborn, alive again, and demanded love. That went horribly frakking wrong. Murdered again, this time to take away your child -- your salvation, human and Cylon in one, the shape of things to come -- and prove how wrong you are. When does it stop? Where do you go when you can't get out? Turn into something else. A machine, as Cavil always suggests. As Cavil prays for you: the God of logic, of machines and ones and zeroes, you pray for God to grant you holy absolution in the cold light of the engine and the circuit, the hush of anonymity, no more pain and no more memories and no more pretending to life, no more animating the dead bones of a dead girl who never existed, into the arms of the Eights: to be a dancing girl, on a string. This is the way we defend ourselves; this is the woman she's choosing to be: no woman at all.
(Creon again, to Antigone: "But the good desires not a like portion with the evil." Who knows, but this seems blameless in the world below? "A foe is never a friend, not even in death." 'Tis not my nature to join in hating, but in loving. "Pass, then, to the world of the dead, and, it thou must needs love, love them. While I live, no woman shall rule me.")
Natalie: "No, this is unconscionable. This is wrong. She can't. You had something to do with this." Cavil did, but he didn't. This hell is man-made, but the human kind. "You cannot allow this!" Natalie shouts at Leoben, who shakes his head. "There is no law. There's no edict. There's nothing that forbids it. It's just never happened before." Natalie points out that this is a great response right up until Cavil boxes Leoben's entire line. Which frankly is not imaginary shit, he's done it before, for less reason. Cavil laughs at her for being a sore loser. "If you do this," she protests, "We all lose."
Simon protests that it's for the best, and Natalie spits: "Our identities are determined by our models. Each model is unique, we belong together. You know this better than anyone." (He's Cancer, of course he does.) "Mechanized copies," she entreats Cavil. "Those are your very words." And he returns her own to her, like any good machine: "Something has changed, those are your very words. And I wholeheartedly agree."
Natalie, like any good Virgo, protests that the sentience of the Raiders is part of the divine plan in their design; she returns to the valid concept that he's butchering the Raiders whether Boomer is cracking up or not. "We're reconfiguring them," Cavil states, a familiar rephrasing whether you're living under the current Roslin administration or our own. "You are not God," hisses Natalie, and Cavil gives a pretty solid answer: "No. I'm a mechanic: the Raiders were designed to do a specific job, they stopped doing it, I'm fixing that. And when the cutting's all done, they'll go back to being happy warriors..."
(The Eight looks at Boomer, her heart breaking -- "Sharon, we love you and we always will," she thinks; "'Tis not my nature to join in hating,' she thinks -- and Boomer nods almost imperceptibly: happy warriors. What she used to be, before she shot the old man, before she was murdered again and again, in her turn. Happy warriors.)
"...So let's move on, all right?" That's Cavil all over: that's New Caprica, that's DEMAND LOVE, that's all of it. Let's forget this unpleasantness and return to the business of business, the machinery of machinery, the search for Earth by my means and divine logic and nobody else's. Six of one. And Natalie, breathing loudly and coming in close before taking off: "I'll pray for you. I'll pray hard." Which, if you've ever met a Six, means his ass is stone cold frakkin' dead. And I cannot wait, frankly.
A PLACE TO SPREAD FORTH NETS
(In which we find Claps both Slow and thundering, Zeus changes his Mind, and Gaius makes a New Friend or two.)
Helo enters the Officer's Mess with an old wooden box, ready for the first of five rehearsed goodbye ceremonies for Lee Adama. Racetrack and Hotdog are playing strip Triad, and I think we can all agree that that's a good thing on all sides. Sam's joking at another table with pilots who have no idea, and the Adamas are standing in the corner, because they are actually kind of dorks. Helo pulls out some old shot glasses and starts setting up ambrosias. Narcho takes a stand and shuts everybody up, so they can say goodbye to "the best damn jock you pink-ass cones will ever hope to see." I don't know what that means, exactly, but Lee -- as Athena laughs, beautifully -- tells him to shut up. "I already have a drink!" he dorks, and Narcho's like, "Don't once again piss on the fun, please." Oh, but Lee Adama's not even thirsty. I swear, this kid. They finally get him to take a drink, and he toasts Galactica, and downs it to applause. He toasts the men and women of Galactica, and they all cheer. He toasts the Admiral -- Bill smiles just wonderfully at his son -- "who commands the men and women of Galactica." Everybody drinks. So say we all. And finally, he toasts our "sweethearts, husbands, and wives."
"Sweethearts. To our sweethearts!" the assembled Viper pilots and Raptor pilots and ECOs and whatever else cheer. And he goes quiet, segueing from the last: "To absent friends." And as the group cheers, thinking of the Hall, thinking of all they've lost, Bill thinks about absent friends and sweethearts, and his dilemma. About how when there's alcohol involved, he expects two people: Tigh and Thrace. And one of them is here, and one of them is absent. He stares at a picture of her, upon the wall in the Mess. And later, in his quarters, he painstakingly puts his model ship back together, his family, and removes Aurora from her prow, and looks at her, and thinks about his broken heart, and thinks about putting it back together.
(Creon, to his son: "All thy words, at least, plead for that girl." Haemon: "And for thee, and for me, and for the Gods..." When we plead forgiveness, it's not just for them and it's not just for us. It's the opposite of scapegoating, it's giving back divinity to God. It lets the light in, and a cool breeze. A fresh start.)
In a civilian mess hall, a Batshit Lady of Baltar murmurs quietly to Gaius, and gives him tribute: an apple. Always scary. He does his usual celeb finesse -- "Thank you. Oh! Oh, that's very sweet. Thank you. Thank you." -- and notices Tory Foster, at a table halfway across the room, staring her ass off. He's wearing an unfortunate ascot due to his unfortunate neck-slicing last week and generally looks like an unfortunate explorer on an ambiguously gay safari. Luckily, he's about to meet an angel who's totally into that. He fidgets with the ever-so-symbolic apple as he crosses the room -- nearly getting into it with a burly hater, to whom he doesn't quite know how to react -- and sits down opposite her, with the Batshits looking on.
"You're spying on me, Tory. I've seen you here." She protests, mentioning the miracle of Derrick and all, and he's like, "So Laura Roslin's interested in my miracles suddenly?" Which, if you've been paying attention: yes. Laura Roslin is not having any miracles in the Fleet that didn't arise from her own personal drug use. She's kinda Cavil about it right now. Tory finally shrugs and says that, yes, she's been spying, but in such a way that suggests there's more to the story. He says something irritating and sarcastic about how not-surprising that is, and she gives another patented Tory Foster deadpan assent before elaborating: "I've been watching these people. The way they look at you." And already, that's how you do it, obviously. Tell him how special he is. "Of course, if you go screaming to the president that my newfound popularity borders on the phenomenal, then she should be very worried," he says, loving the power in that. As though he's never heard of airlocking, or her itchy airlocking finger. "I came here on my own," Tory murmurs, and Gaius jokes that he slept with her boss just last night.
Then something surprising and altogether wonderful happens. Chip Gaius, late of Caprica's head, appears to Tory at the table. "Oh come on, be nice. What's it gonna cost you?" Especially if you make the same half-assed joke over and over. Gaius, of course, wigs out, giving a very monotheist OMG before really losing it, awesomely: "Oh, my God. Oh, my giddy aunt!" Chip Gaius begs him to get a grip, and tells our little man to focus. "If she's not lying, she really could be a wonderful source of information." Although, of course, not in the way Baltar might think. She's more of a F5 Cylon these days than Laura's lockdown buddy. "Why don't you feel her out?" Gaius, at a loss, Angelis, "Feel her what?" To which Tory, having had enough of this shit for one episode, one might think, is like, "The frak?" Gaius is hilarious, blowing her off in the midst of his nineteenth nervous breakdown: "I'm not talking to you." Chip Gaius, who is like Six in that he has more of a grasp on reality than Real Gaius ever will, despite their realness inequality, tells him to drop the Chip issue for a bit and center his attention on Tory, who is important: "Ask her what she's doing here."
Baltar, changing course cutely: "[Now] I am talking to you. Why did you come here?" She admits it might have been a mistake -- and who wouldn't, once confronted face-to-face with the personal insult that is the Gaius Baltar hallucinatory episode -- but soldiers on. "Well, I can't stop thinking about what's happened. You were found innocent when everyone hated you. I hated you. And this healed boy? The return of Kara Thrace? I mean, everyone thought she was dead. So perhaps there are miracles." He admits there might be, but doesn't give up much. "Thing is, somehow you seem to be at the center of them." He is also bewildered by that. "Well, it seems that God has chosen me to sing his song." Ping! Tory sits right the fuck up at that, to the point where even Gaius notices: "Music. Did you say music?" No, she didn't. He did. Six of one.
(Kobol: I know this place. "Of course you do. Go inside. I don't understand. "Life has a melody, Gaius. A rhythm of notes that become your existence, once played in harmony with God's plan. It's time to do your part and realize your destiny." Which is what, exactly? "You are the guardian and protector of the new generation of God's children. The first member of our family will be with us soon, Gaius. It's time to make your choice... Come, see the face of the shape of things to come. Isn't she beautiful, Gaius?")
"Yeah, you know. It's funny, it's a lot like that. It's like the...distant chaos of an orchestra tuning up. And then somebody waves a magic wand, and all of those notes start to slide into place. A grotesque, screeching cacophony becomes a single melody." And as the beautiful, grinning score mirrors the speech, Tory stands up, visibly shaken, unsure if he's sending her a message or talking out his ass or sending her a message from his ass, worrying that if things are getting real, she shouldn't be seen there. Wondering if somebody just tipped their hand, and if so, if it was him or her. Six of one.
Alone, I guess it's no surprise that Real Gaius shows more chemistry with Chip Gaius than he does with anybody besides Six; besides her he's like Gaius's ultimate narcissistic ideal of all time. (And between nerdy you and nerdy me, how effing cool is this?) "Who the frak are you?" he asks, and "Am I supposed to be impressed?" he asks, and "You're me! Obviously!" And then he slows, wondering if this is Six, messing with him again, and blowing Chip's mind in the process: "Unless you're not me. Six? Is it you, Six? In disguise?" Chip asks the very apposite question of why she would need to disguise herself from Gaius, when he's the only one that sees her -- as though her shit has ever made sense to him -- but Gaius acquiesces. As Chip tries to get him on task (Tory, obviously), Gaius pushes and resists and asks about Six some more, but eventually gets Gaius back on track. I wonder based on that line of dialogue, asking where she went, if there's been a switcheroo here and he won't be seeing her for awhile. (Really, I'd like to see Caprica and Chip Six get down and do the actual Six Of One Tango. "I'm totally scary like a sexy shark." "No, I'm totally scary like a sexy shark, plus I'm wearing freshly laundered clothing." "Well, I can beat you up." "Well, no, because I'm invisible and you are crazy now.")
"Let's talk about Tory," Chip repeats himself. "Because we both know where this is heading. You like her, don't you?" And Gaius does a hilarious Krakow/Catalano thing where it's like he's been shocked back into latency and is so entranced by...himself...that he is just giving this performance for Chip's benefit. You know? Not like a gay thing -- well, kinda -- but like he doesn't really care about girls one way or the other, and Chip's pushing him into it. I'm not explaining it very well. Wikipedia latency, I guess. "Yeah well you know she's um she's a sexy lady end of line," he basically stammers. ("Isn't she beautiful, Gaius?") Chip's like, "Yeah, buddy," indicating he needs more heteronormalization from Real at this time. "You know...hot?" This whole bit is like in Forty Year Old Virgin when he's explaining what breasts feel like. "You slay me, you really do, Gaius," says Chip, and practically nuzzles him. "She's more than all these things. She's special. And you feel it." They both nod: "Fragile." Baltar congratulates the Chip Gaius on noticing that, calls him observant, and then they both meditate on it for awhile. "Handle with care," Chip murmurs, and -- I would ask how much is theatre at this point, except if you're getting gay with yourself, that's not really gay, so...I don't know, Gaius Baltar has officially blown my mind -- Gaius allows as how he'd love to handle Tory with care. Little does he know just how big that job might be.
ODES IN THE FIFTH STASIMON
(In which Mommy and Daddy fight terribly, Brother and Sister do not, and the Major gets a three-hour Handjob in the Apollo Suit, which is at this time an actual Suit, for hopefully the last time.)
Adama's on a bender, pouring himself a drink and coughing on the bitterness of it, long after the rest of the party has gone home. Laura sits at the desk in this loittle home they've made, this little cabin in the wilderness, and snorts at him. "What do we do now? Put her on trial? Find Romo Lampkin?" The disgust in her voice there is awesome and hilarious. "Take a show of hands? Follow her into an ambush?" Adama replies, not really to anything in particular, that Kara's driven. Hoping, maybe, that Roslin will realize this makes them sisters and not enemies, but Laura's not interested in bagpipes right now. "Yeah. You gonna keep waltzing, or are you gonna sit down and talk? What's going on? Sit." It's harsh but still loving; there's an edge on it that still has love in it.
He takes a drink and goes there: "What if she's telling the truth? She was supposed to die out there. She didn't, I can't explain it. What if she was meant to help us? And this was a..." Laura can't believe it, she overbites her way into the concept slowly: "A what? A miracle? Is that what you want to call this? Go ahead, say it. Grab your piece of the Golden Arrow. I want to hear Admiral Atheist say that a miracle happened." I like that line an awful lot; her performance goes without saying. "You shot at her and missed, at close range." Like that's another miracle. Laura hedges: "Huh. Doloxan fraks with your aim." But so does doubt, he says softly. Ask Sam.
Roslin goes scary and unblinking, unbending, wanting to be very clear: "I pulled the trigger and I'd do it again. She put her life in front of a bullet as if it had no meaning. You drop an egg, you reach for another." This last, so much chillier and portentous than it looks on the page. But Adama, knowing Kara, suggests that it was just more important that she prove herself. That a girl in a cage who's been to the edge doesn't have much else to lose; that death is preferable to watching her people lose their way. Laura asks if that counts as a miracle, then begins the slow unwinding. Talky-talk takes over.
"You want to talk about miracles? The very same day that a very pale doctor informed me that I had terminal cancer, most of humanity was annihilated. And I survived, and by some mathematical absurdity, I became President. And then my cancer disappeared. Long enough for us to find a way to Earth. You can call it whatever you want. And now I'm dying." Somebody pointed out on the forums that Roslin stopped being the Dying Leader just long enough to settle on New Caprica, and took up that role again just as Kara, and the Nebula, were changing everything again.
"Don't talk that way," he sighs. That word, to a dove like Bill; that finality after he's lost so much. You could accomplish allllll this talking talking in a few simple gestures, if you trusted your actors more. "Bill. You've gotta face this. My life is coming to an end soon enough, and I am not going to apologize to you for not trusting her. And I am not...I am not going to trust her with the fate of this Fleet. You are so buckled up inside. You can't take any more loss. Your son's leaving. This -- me..." He is her family. He doesn't deserve to be here. "I know it."
Adama swears, with a drink in his hand and under his breath, that nobody is going anywhere. He wants so badly to believe, and so rarely that you want to just hand it to him, when he does. "Okay. Here's the truth. This is what's going on." (Ding ding ding! If you're wondering what's going on, and desperately need to have it explained to you on the level of the lowest common denominator, Laura's going to hand it to you. Although I will say that this kind of thing is a lot better at the beginning of the season, because it tells you where the season's going. Last week I said the season could be found in the quiet moments, but this week it's the opposite. Here's what's going on.)
"You want to believe Kara. You would rather be wrong about her, and face your own demise, than risk losing her again." And just so you know she's right, Adama stares bitterly into his glass and then growls, "You can stay in the room, but get out of my head." He rises to our another drink and she scoffs, accusing him of being afraid to live alone. Which is an awkward line in this scene, but only bridges to his , the worst and most telling: "And you're afraid to die that way." She grins bitterly, and hums that sad, scary hum she hums, and somewhere in this room, in the trash or something, there's a broken portrait of a family.
"You're afraid that you may not be the Dying Leader you thought you were. Or that your death may be as meaningless as everyone else's. "...For if any, being supreme guide of the State, cleaves not to the best counsels, but through some fear keeps his lips locked, I hold, and have ever held, him most base; and if any makes a friend of more account than his fatherland, that man hath no place in my regard. For I -- be Zeus my witness, who sees all things always -- would not be silent if I saw ruin, instead of safety, coming to the citizens; nor would I ever deem the country's foe a friend to myself; remembering this, that our country is the ship that bears us safe, and that only while she prospers in our voyage can we make true friends." That's Creon again, telling the lies that we have to tell ourselves in order to make the pieces fit. That's Laura Roslin talking about her people, her people, and her most trusted friend calling bullshit. Calling her selfish. He's always so fucking brutal when he's drunk. He leaves without a word, slamming the hatch behind him.
Laura puts on her glasses to return to the work of her life, applying the strength of her hands and her brilliant mind to the salvation of humanity. She weeps, softly, and runs her hands through her hair. Apocalypse is relative. A hank of hair falls out, in her hand, and her body jolts; she places it on the table, takes her glasses off again, and begins to weep, in earnest, all alone. In a cabin in the wilderness.
Haemon: "That is no city which belongs to one man."
Creon: "Is not the city held to be the ruler's?"
Haemon: "Thou wouldst make a good monarch of a desert."
Lee enters Kara's cell to tell her that he's been nominated by Zarek to fill the last vacant Quorum spot. She giggles, "You're Zarek's wingman!" And he's so easy and natural, blushing and laughing with her, chained and on the floor: "All right, all right, you know, stow it, okay. I've heard it all before. The guy's a piece of work, I know. His head's as big as the house I grew up in. But I'm pretty new to all this, I could use the help. Besides, I never really could say no to anything." She swallows and wonders if she's going to go there; she's Kara Thrace, so of course she does. "...Except me."
Breathing -- Bamber fucking rocks this whole episode -- he returns the serve: "Especially you." He tells her he knows about destiny now, special destiny, the kind of thing that would take you halfway across the Fleet, away from family and the service, to labor in the creation of a nation, without a map or compass to get there. That his destiny is leading him away from the war and into reconstruction. Where you and I both know he's always belonged. Kara, most of all: it's all he's ever done for her, put her back together.
Starbuck smiles with sadness and loss in her eyes, and gives her amen. "So say we all." He nods slightly with a grin, in deference to her half-joking accusation of speechifying, even as the wonder in her voice belies it. "So say we all." And that's the end. Their deal is struck, for now. She stands and offers a strong hand, and they wish each other luck, on their journeys. This is the season now: the Twins separated, becoming adults, becoming grown. Their hands forget to let go, and they smile. "Okay." "All right." He clasps her with both hands and lets it drop, and turns to go. And just before the opening of the door, just before the journey can begin, just before the chapter starts, she says his name, once, softly, afraid to break the spell. And he turns, and kisses her. First with passion, and then in simple comfort: her temple, her cheek, her jaw. Forcing bravery and strength from skin to skin, to keep her going in the weeks ahead. And the last thing Lee Adama says to Kara Thrace is this: "I believe you."
Captain Apollo, remember that? I'm so happy for him now. He stands in the Briefing Room, remembers meeting after meeting and tactic after tactic, showdowns and psych-outs, drawing lines between friendship and command, between the dead and the still-fighting, Kara being a dick too early in the morning. Saying goodbye to Captain Apollo.
Athena escorts Lee into the hangar, with his bags, and out of sight there's Helo's voice, calling everyone to attention; Lee looks to Athena and she shrugs, grinning. It's a surprise sendoff. Even Laura and Tory are there. Everyone's in dress uniforms, leather sashes and spit-shined shoes. And Colonel Tigh, that old poet, explains why Lee Adama's my very favorite of them all.
"In recognition of honorable, loyal, and faithful service, Madam President, Admiral of the Colonial Fleet, ladies and gentlemen: Major Lee Adama. Salute!" They do. Lee, tears standing at attention in his eyes, returns their salute one last time, and Helo begins the applause. Lee works his way down the line, shaking hands and embracing his fellows. With their arms around each other, Helo quietly wishes him good luck. Dualla steps up to him, presenting him with a framed plaque celebrating his service, his insignia on a velvet field. He searches her eyes out, and in them is apology and acceptance and love without need. He thanks her, and with a wry smile says, "Well, it looks like you got the house." She finally smiles back, and it's like something coming open that never needed to be locked. "I'll miss you," he says, and she tells him goodbye. Finally, finally goodbye. Do you think she knows? How she led him here? How she reminded him, as she reminded his father so long ago, of his true responsibilities? Romo Lampkin and Anastasia Dualla made a man of Lee Adama, taught him to be good but not too good, how to temper his values with love, and to remember his people. She's sent him on this mission, to remake the system, this gang on the run without rules or thoughts beyond survival. She did that. I think he knows, he must: she tossed him out and called him out, and now he's off to become a man. "Look after yourself," he says, and then the cheering swells, and the Admiral embraces his son, and the pieces finally fit.
THE HALF DOZEN, AND THE OTHER
(In which Raiders are Desecrated, Tory Foster's Algorithms fail her utterly, and both Natalie and Adama choose unthinkable Alternatives.)
On the Basestar, the Fours are drilling holes into the brains of creatures too loving and dumb to understand or protest what's being done. You sing them to sleep, Raiders; when they're nervous or afraid you sing to them. And when they die, their last thought is of fear, and pain; and when they're reborn, it's all they can think of. Happy little warriors.
Cavil sits behind a desk in a conference room and smiles at Natalie, smarmy as ever. She demands once again for him to stop, and Cavil rules out free will for the Raiders. He considers her a moment, and then begins to shout. "Do you know what just really rankles my ass? You've been pointing fingers, falsely accusing me of manipulation just short of tyranny, when you're the one that's been leading the charge here." That's what a girl does, when she's right. It's not tyranny to respond to tyranny. Natalie stands with her arms crossed and tells him a second time that he must stop, and is again denied. She asks a third time, as with any spell, and he laughs at her in an aside to Simon ("It's unbelievable, isn't it? Unbelievable.") And his response to Natalie is simple: "For the last time, no." That's three. These are old rules.
(Creon: "Therefore we must support the cause of order, and in no wise suffer a woman to worst us. Better to fall from power, if we must, by a man's hand; then we should not be called weaker than a woman.")
"I was afraid you'd say that," she says, and she means it. "Come in." A couple Centurions enter the conference room, and Cavil calls her cute, reminding her the Centurions -- like the Hybrids, like the Raiders, like anybody not selected by his God -- don't vote. "Oh, they're not here to vote, Cavil," she says, and their arms become guns, and Natalie is sad behind her eyes, but determined, and won't look away from him.
Tory moans beneath Baltar, distracting him; he asks if he's hurting her and she says no, that there's nothing wrong. He realizes she's crying; I wonder if he thinks of Gina in this moment, or about why he does the things that he does. "It's just something I do during sex," she says, in a deadpan that we know is a lie. She wasn't crying with Sam, listening to the song across the water. ""All...all the time?" Even for Gaius, apparently, that's a new one. She apologizes, and he strokes the tears from her face. "Don't be sorry. Why should you apologize? You should be thankful. You have an abundance of feeling." That's one way to look at it, I guess. But if you connect the dots, shouldn't that mean that you should not be having sex with her? Because what this is, is an abundance of weird. He calls her blessed, and she spaces out, gone vague, and wonders aloud if she's a Cylon. (Speaking of connecting the dots, I can't: You're blessed, aren't you? "I guess so, or I could be a Cylon. Either way, stop fucking me, because I'm crying, you idiot.")
Gaius strokes Tory's arm, sweetly. Part of what makes him this lady's man guy is how completely he gives himself to them. Even in really gross situations, there's always this attention and this affection that you never normally see. I remember years ago, when Kara called him "Lee" in bed, even, I was touched by how consumed he was by her. Not even with passion exactly, just this kind of worshipful presentness. He's so confusing sometimes. "I don't know about that. Human beings don't exclusively hold the patent on suffering. Cylons can feel." She asks if he means it, and he nods, and she trusts him, and strokes his face. "Man may have made them, but God's at the beginning of the string, isn't he? It's God who made the soul. The One True God."
She heard the song, behind his voice; perhaps she felt the presence of an angel. She tracked him down, she made the choice, she bedded him, and found that she could still be touched. Maybe that's all it is: maybe all that vomiting and fear, maybe it was self-hatred, bubbling under the surface, and then there's Gaius talking music, and making love to her, and telling her that she is loved. That God loves her, that her feelings are real. That the woman she chooses to be is worth choosing. I'd like to think that's all it is. She cocks an eyebrow, wanting desperately to believe: "One God?" And regardless of how much of this is theatre, his usual real/not-real bluff that only gets more complex as time goes on, this I believe: "Yeah, the One True God. You know, I'm becoming increasingly tired of holding that in. Of denying that essential truth." And that, I think, is the point at which the cult's thread knots with his, and his quest for messiahship begins. Which is why I can't question any of this, really, not yet: a Final Fiver and an angel have conspired to bring about the same change in Gaius that he and the angel once created in Three herself. ...Right down to the sex and crying, actually. Huh.
Cavil spits and denies and rages and Natalie just stares, producing a little piece of metal. Just a little thing, no bigger than the thing he killed our Three with: a tiny metal piece of hell, that once separated Centurions from their souls. "The telencephalic inhibitor that restricts higher functions in the Centurions. We had them removed." Cavil echoes her from earlier, hilariously: "Say what?" And she explains. Creon's hubris, Three's revenge. The girl in the cage becomes a holy spirit of justice. "You dumbed down the Raiders. We, the Leobens, the Sharons, gave the Centurions the gift of reason." The gift, remember, of God. "You have no authority to do this. None. You can't do anything without a vote!" And Natalie turns the phrase on him brilliantly: "No, we can't do anything with one. So we're finished voting." Ask Zarek, or Cally and the Chief: the first rule of democracy is that it can be perverted, and then the Gods themselves will rain fire to restore it. Revolution is the apple, and Natalie's about to take a big fucking bite.
(The Leader of the Chorus ends Antigone thus: "Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence towards the Gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise." End of line, for now.)
The Centurions step forward menacingly; outside the conference room, there's loud gunfire and screams. Ones and Fours and Fives, brought down in fire. "First thing they learned is what you were doing to the Raiders. You can imagine how they felt." Doral cutely begins to sweat it, and then it starts. The Centurions gun them down, the Ones, the Fours and the Fives, and Natalie averts her gaze, standing in the smoke and cordite. When it's done, she stands in the wreckage and the Centurions look to her. She wipes the horror from her face, and breathes.
Another jump. Alone in her cell, unaware Adama's watching, Starbuck cries and screams until she chokes. She feels the body of the universe in her own, like a Hybrid, twisting itself and bending in the jump, taking her people away from the Promised Land and into disaster, and she screams. He leaves her without a word.
Some time later, Helo and a Marine squad enter the cell. Kara makes a hateful face and stands, meeting Helo's eyes. Noncommittal, in a rough voice, he orders her cuffed, and they take her away, to an isolated region. Is this her end of line? Has Adama weighed the consequences, and her unbending promises? I almost believed it. He's so afraid to be alone.
So," she says, voice creaky from screaming, "You quietly cut me loose in deep space. I'm not afraid to die." Adama stands opposite her, with Helo by her side, and nods. "Little easier after you've been through it once," he muses, but she shakes her head. "Harder. Especially now that I'm seeing things so clearly. You're making a mistake." He allows that she might be right, but explains that he can't take the chance that she's right. Can't let that chance at Earth slip by. He nods to a Marine, who unlocks her cuffs, and the squad leaves her alone with Helo and the Admiral. Her oldest friend, and most beloved leader. She stares at him like Cordelia, like Antigone at Colonus, looking at her father, hands free.
"Helo hand-picked a crew for you. I'm giving you a ship. I hope you can stand the smell." Helo explains that they're using the Demetrius, a sewage recycling ship. "The party line will be that we're going for a scouting mission. Looking for food." She looks at them, one to the other, and comes to life again. She almost smiles. "So you think I'm right."
But when you're looking at a girl in a cage, who unbending promises never to stop, that ceases to be the first question you ask. "Maybe, maybe not, but I know she is. The President. She's been right all along. I'm tired of losing. I'm tired of turning away from the things that I want to believe in." When he locked her up... No, before. When she died, and he crushed his family in his hands and hurled it up against the wall, he locked up his heart, too. Told Lee to go to hell, forgot about justice. It wasn't just Kara's resurrection.
"And I believe you when you say that you'll die before you stop trying. And I won't lose you again." She nods. She knows. "Now go. Find a way to Earth." She steps to him then, and holds him close. And these two souls, these two kin spirits, Husker and Starbuck, hotshots both, who've lost so much: these two are borne again, on the breeze and the light of the dawn, and remember what they are.
Boom boom boom. Friends, this wasn't meant to be so long. I've already cut so much. But I did want to say one last thing, and I know you're out there: I apologize. This episode was wonderful. Thank you.